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THE LOIRE 




In the Market, Cosnk. 



ALONG FRANCE'S 

RIVER OF ROMANCE 

THE LOIRE 

THE CHATEAU COUNTRY- 
ITS PERSONALITY, ITS ARCHITECTURE 
ITS PEOPLE AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS 



BY 

DOUGLAS GOLDRING 



NEW YORK 
McBRIDE, NAST y COMPANY 









<^ e 



^^ 



LA LOIRE 

" La Loire est une femme, amoureuse et pamee, 
Mais prompte A s'echapper en des caprices fous, 
Sa perfide langueur dort sur les sables roux, 
Et baise les contours de sa rive charmee. 

" La Loire est une reine, et les rois I'ont aimec: 
Sur ses cheveux d'azur, ils ont pose, jaloux, 
Des chateaux ciseles, ainsi que des bijoux ; 
Et de ces grands joyaux, sa couronne est forraee. 

" Vous passez votre vie, 6 peupliers tremblants, 
A la voir s'egarer en detours nonchalants, 
Muette, enigmatique, et souple, et lente, et bleue. . . . 

" Tels, eternellement debouts sur le chemin 
D'une reine, deux rangs d'estafiers, pique en main, 
Regardent fuir en serpentant sa robe a queue. " . . . 

Jules Lejiaitke, 
de I'Acaderaie Fran^aise. 



CONTENTS 





Introduction : What the Loire means to 


PAOB 

France xi 


CHAPTER 
I. 


The Source 




1 


II. 


Goudet 






24. 


III. 


Le Puy en Velay 






36 


IV. 


Vorey 






57 


V 


In the Forez . 






77 


VI. 


DiGOTN 






93 


VII. 


Nevers 






103 


VIII. 


Sancerre 






120 


IX. 


COSNE AND BrIARE 






133 


X. 


GlEN 






145 


XI. 


From Gien to Orleans 






157 


XII. 


Orleans 






167 


XIII. 


Beaugency 






188 


XIV. 


To Blois 






203 


XV. 


Chaumont and Amboise . 






224 


XVI. 


Tours 






234 


XVII. 


From Tours to Saumur 






247 


XVIII. 


Saumur to Angers 






267 


XIX. 


The Vallee d'Anjou 






280 


XX. 


Nantes 






294 


XXI. 


To St. Nazaire 
Index 






315 
325 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR 

In the Market, Cosne . . . . Frontispiece 

Goudet . . . . Facing page 32 

The Loire near Vorey . . . „ QG 

Decize . . . . „ 106 

The Bridge, Gien . . „ 150 

The Loire near Orleans (La Chapelle-St.-Mesmin) „ 180 

Saumur . . . . „ 272 

The Pont-Transbordeur at Nantes . „ 31 6 



BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS 

Mont Gerbier de Jones, with the Ferme de la Loire in 

the foreground 
Scene at Le Monastier — Market-day 
Lace-makers, Haute Loire 
The Gazeille . 
The Source 

An Ox-cart in the Cevennes 
Old Farm near Coubon . 
The Bridge below Brives 
Rocher d'Aiguilhe, Le Puy 
Market Scene, Le Puy, Haute Loire 
Near Le Puy . 
At Pont de Lignon 
Castle of Rocliebaron, near Bas 
At Feurs 

The Saut de Pinay 
Near Roanne, St. Maurice 



XI 

5 

9 
12 
22 
41 
44 
45 
48 
53 
59 
72 
74 
80 
85 
87 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Digoin 

La Charite 

Sancerre 

The Loire near Pouilly-sur-Loire 

At Tracy 

Street in Cosne 

Neuvy 

Chatillon 

Gien 

A Street in Gien 

The Chateau of Sully 

St. Benoit 

Orleans 

The Loire near Orleans 

The Porte d'Amont at Meung 

Beaugency 

Beaugency Bridge 

Mer 

A Side Street in Blois 

The Cisse at Onzain 

The Cisse near Vouvray 

The Chateau, Luynes 

The Chateau, Langeais 

The Loire at Port-Boulet 

Candes 

Saumur 

The Loire at Gennes 

Les Ponts-de-Ce 

Montjean 

St. Florent-le-Vieil 

At Ancenis 

The Cathedi-al, Nantes 

On the Quay, Nantes 

PaimbcEuf 




Mont Gerbier de Jones, with the Ferme de la Loire in the foreground 



INTRODUCTION 



WHAT THE LOIRE MEANS TO FRANCE 

rMHE River Loire rises, 4500 feet above the sea, on the 
-*- slope of Gerbier de Jones, the highest peak, but one, 
of the Cevennes. After a course of eighteen miles, it 
enters, as a wild mountain torrent, the department of 
Haute Loire. At Vorey, below the confluence of the 
Arzon, it becomes (officially) navigable for rafts. It is 
classified as navigable for vessels at La Noirie in the 
gorges of St. Victor, four miles after its entry into 
the next department, that of Loire. After crossing the 
unhealthy swamps of the Plaine du Forez it enters fresh 
gorges, its last struggle with the rocks, from which it 
emerges at Roanne. It now skirts the department of 
Sa6ne-et-Loire, and enters that of Nievre, where its 
course is diverted in a north-westerly direction by the 
mountains of the Morvan. Below Nevers it is joined 
by its first great tributary, the Allier, which is by 
some considered the main channel. The Allier rises in 



xii THE LOIRE 

the department of Loz^re, thirty miles to the south-west 
of Gerbier de Jones, and at its confluence with the 
Loire it forms fully two-thirds of the combined stream. 

Below Briare, in Loiret, the next department, the 
river flows between the plateaus of Gatinais and the 
Beauce on the right, and the desolate Sologne on the 
left. A curious characteristic of the affluents of the Loire, 
in Loiret, is that they often flow in a parallel channel 
to the big river, and in the same valley. At Orleans 
the stream turns sharply to the south-west and flows 
towards its most famous province — Touraine — through 
the departments of Loir-et-Cher and Indre-et-Loire. 
Below Tours it receives the three important tributaries 
of the Cher, the Indre, and the Vienne. The con- 
fluence of the Vienne marks the entry of the Loire into 
the department of Maine-et-Loire, where one of its 
chief characteristics is its numerous long sandy islands 
fringed with willows and osiers. The river now enters its 
last department, that of Loire-Inferieure, passes Nantes, 
and so reaches St. Nazaire and the Atlantic. Below 
Nantes, to La Martiniere, the channel for ships is em- 
banked, and the river here, known as the Loire Maritime, 
widens between marsh}^ shores, till at St. Nazaire it is 
a mile and a half broad. Between Le Carnet and La 
Martiniere, a distance of nine and a half miles, there is 
a canal — the Canal Maritime de la Loire — which enables 
large ships to ascend as far as Nantes. It was con- 
structed between 1881 and 1892. 

It is only to be expected that a river six hundred and 
twenty-five miles long, the longest in France, should 
have had a great significance in that country's history. 
After the termination of the Franco -Prussian War a 



WHAT THE LOIRE MEANS TO FRANCE xiii 

writer in the " Figaro " described the Loire as " lejleuve 
national,'''' and the more one examines this description 
the more it holds good. On its banks have taken place 
nearly all the great events, certainly the greatest 
military events, in French history, from the exploits of 
Jeanne d'Arc to the hopeless but heroic struggle of 
Chanzy in 1870. Its wide curve separates France 
effectively into two parts, and it acts as a final, 
natural barrier against an invading force. As a 
civilising influence, in the early history of the 
country, its importance was very great ; and from the 
earliest times until the coming of the railway its course 
formed the chief trade route and highway of com- 
munication between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic 
coast. The route ascended by Avay of the Rhone, crossed 
from Lyons to Roanne by land, and proceeded down the 
Loire to Nevers, Orleans, Blois, Tours, Nantes, and so 
to St. Nazaire and the sea. Strabo, Dion Cassius, and 
Julius Csesar make reference to the early navigation of 
the Loire. The latter recommended his lieutenants, 
in order to avoid the treacherous sands of the river, to 
use long boats — naves longas aedificari in flumine Ligeri. 
In the fourth and fifth centuries the sole rights of 
trade and navigation of the Loire were in the hands of a 
close corporation of Nautes Ligerici, whose members 
were spread up and down the river from Roanne to 
Nantes. Out of this society sprang the " Community 
of Merchants of the Loire," which appears prominently 
in the time of Philippe le Bel, though it undoubtedly 
had the earlier origin indicated. Even in Charle- 
magne's days it was in full swing, and the Loire 
Valley was a busy centre of commercial and military 



xiv THE LOIRE 

activity, not only for travellers and merchandise going 
from one sea to the other, but for soldiers of the Empire, 
moving from the banks of the Rhine to the marshes of 
Spain. 

The Community of Merchants of the Loire grew very 
quickly to have great power and a wonderfully com- 
plete organisation. This organisation was essential, in 
feudal times, to preserve the trade from extinction, 
owing to the exactions of the robber barons, whose 
castles were dotted all along its course. These pillaged 
the merchants either quite shamelessly or by means of 
semi-legal exactions — droits de peage. The droits de peage 
grew very high in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
and were the great scourges of commerce in those days. 
A great deal, however, was done to improve matters 
by the concerted action of the rich and wealthy 
Communauti. They succeeded time after time in getting 
the levies regulated, or in some cases even suppressed ; 
and important acts in connection with the trade were 
passed in 1577, 1618, 1631, 1724, and as late as 1736, 
in the days of the Community's decline. 

The passenger service up and down the Loire seems 
to have been highly organised, from an early date. 
King Rene of Anjou sailed up it in a galley from Saumur 
as far as Roanne in 1445 ; and travelling on the Loire 
is referred to as a matter of course by such writers as 
Madame de Sevigne, John Evelyn, and Arthur Young. 

In 1780 a regular service of coches d'eau was started, 
and a concession granted " au Sieur Claude Laure." 
The river, for the purpose of this service, was divided 
into three divisions, the first being from Roanne to 
Nevers, the second from Nevers to Orleans, and the third 



WHAT THE LOIRE MEANS TO FRANCE xv 

from Orleans to Nantes, and there were two departures 
a week each way between these points. Among the 
different kinds of boats used on the river, and in some 
cases peculiar to it, were grands chalands and 'petits 
chalands ; grandes tones and petites tones, or sapines ; 
tones cabanees ; cambnses (canteen boats) ; roannaises, 
bachots, and cahanes. The majority of these were fiat- 
bottomed. The sapines were usually constructed only 
for one journey downstream and destroyed at the 
end of it. 

Steamboats were early experimented with on the 
Loire, and a steam service was started between Nantes 
and Angers in 1823. Six years later this service was 
prolonged to Orleans. In 1839 a service of vessels, 
known as " Inexplosibles " because their boilers were so 
constructed that all risk of blowing up was avoided, 
was inaugurated. By 1843 there were four companies 
of steamers on the river, namely, the " Paquebots," 
plying between Orleans and Nantes ; the " Inexplosi- 
bles de la Haute Loire," between Orleans, Nevers, and 
Moulins (on the Allier) ; the " Inexplosibles de la Basse 
Loire," between Orleans and Nantes ; and a company 
of " Remorqueurs," between Nantes and Chatillon. 

This animation and activity, however, were put a stop 
to three years later by the action of the railways, who 
took over all the carrying trade. It was just at the time 
when the glories of the English canal system were 
departing, and so many of our canals were being bought 
up and emptied. From this date the navigation of the 
Loire has dwindled and dwindled until nowadays the 
river is practically deserted above Nantes. Its course, 
too, during the last century, would seem to have become 
h 



xvi THE LOIRE 

more sand-choked and dangerous than it was. Expensive 
works for the regularisation of the flow of water would 
have to be carried out if the long-cherished scheme of 
so many patriotic Frenchmen for restoring the river to its 
former commercial importance were to come to fruition. 

The valley now silent, savage, deserted, must indeed 
present a striking contrast with its appearance a 
century ago. As Count Imbart de la Tour observes : 
" Le halage fait le long des rives donnait une grande 
animation, le va-et-vient des animaux, leur passage dans 
le fleuve ou les riaults, les appels et les cris des haleurs, 
ceux des baliseurs, jetaient une note vive et gaie dans 
cette vallee de la Loire, si silencieuse a I'heure actuelle." 
Again : " On ne revoit plus," he says, " de bateaux 
charges de marchandises ou de voyageurs silloner son 
cours ensable, ni de haleurs ou de baliseurs a la voix 
sonore ! " 

Hardly anything is done to " conserve " the river, 
now that navigation has deserted it ; a fact which has 
its dangers. " Le fleuve coule silencieux au milieu de 
belles et larges plaines ; mais lors de ses debordements, 
ses flots dechaines viennent rompre ce silence et briser 
avec impetuosite les obstacles qui se presentent devant 
eux. Ce ne sont pas des plages a demi-desertes que 
parcourt le fleuve pendant ses crues, c'est une vallee 
riche et feconde, ce sont des villes, des ponts de routes 
qui sont menaces, c'est I'oeuvre de vingt generations 
qui est en peril. Heureusement la Loire, comme 
I'Amazone, a ses petits igarapes." 

In comparing the past and present of the Loire, it is 
interesting to read what another writer, Coulon, thought 
of it in 1644 : "II n'est pas de riviere en Europe," he 



WHAT THE LOIRE MEANS TO FRANCE xvii 

says, with more enthusiasm than accuracy, " qui pousse 
plus loin ses flots, et qui arrose autant de provinces, si 
ce n'est le Danube, et beaucoup moins en est-il une 
dont la navigation soit plus favorable et plus avanta- 
geuse aux peuples pour I'entretien de leur commerce, 
et dont les passages soient plus importants pour la con- 
servation d'un grand Etat que ceux de Loyre, qui 
partage la France en deux parties, et la traverse par le 
milieu. ... II enrichit plus de douze provinces, et 
baigne plus de trente belles villes. . . ." The greatness 
of the commerce of the Loire in the heyday of the 
" Communaute des Marchands de la Loire," is borne out 
by the songs of the haleurs, with which the thronged 
towing-paths used to echo and re-echo. 

" Chantons la Loire et sa marine, 
Sur terre, il n'est rien de pareil, 
En route au lever du soleil, 
Chantons la Loire et sa marine ! " 

Men who have to do with navigation of any kind, even 
if only barges, seem to be particularly fond of songs 
and singing, and the songs of the mariners of the Loire 
are innumerable. Most of them chiefly consist of an 
enumeration of the towns on its banks. 

'^ Dames des villes et des bourgs 

Nivernaises, Nantaises, 
Accourez dans vos fins atours, 

Voir les Orle'anaises. 
Toutes les villes de sur I'eau, 

Pays bas et pays haut, 
Venez belles marinieres, 
Venez, 6 doux objets charmants, 

De toute la riviere : 
L'amour au bateau vous attend." 

The descent of the Loire nowadays, if it is full of 
interest, is also full of sadness. So much joyousness, 



xviii THE LOIRE 

vigour, and life has vanished from its banks ; you 
pass along a desolate and mournful stream out of which 
rise, here and there, arid sand -banks. Willows and osiers 
make melancholy guardians of its sides. There is no 
trace of the animation of old days. And all down its 
course is a long procession of crumbled ruins, of decayed 
strongholds ; of toAMis whose modern commercial ac- 
tivity only accentuates the sadness of the remains of 
their more glorious past ; of bridges which show signs of 
having been broken and battered in a constant succession 
of wars lasting even up to modern times. For, as has 
been remarked already, if the history of the Loire has 
been one of prosperity and of social glory — and the kings 
of France resided at different times at Chinon, Tours, 
Blois, and Orleans, while the valley has alwaj's been 
famous for its splendid chateaux — it has also been a 
history of almost continuous strife and bloodshed. 

A thousand years ago, the Norman pirates sailed up 
the river and harried the country-side ; and they were 
not the first. After them came the wars with the 
English, waged along its valley, Avhich ended in our 
being hors de France mis by Jeanne d'Arc after a series 
of engagements at Orleans, Jargeau, and Beaugency. 
And there is hardly a town or castle on the Loire which 
did not suffer in the various religious wars of a century 
later. 

In the seventeenth century came the Fronde, one of 
whose decisive battles was fought at les Ponts-de-Ce, 
near Angers, and in the eighteenth century there were 
the Revolution and the war of La Vendee, which made 
the river purple with blood. Finally came the Franco- 
Prussian War. in which the last stand of a nation at bay 



WHAT THE LOIRE MEANS TO FRANCE xix 

was made by the hastily raised Armee de la Loire, behind 
the great water-course. The same towns on the Loire at 
which the fiercest struggles raged during the wars against 
the English, came into prominence again in 1870-1. 
With desperate heroism, Chanzy's hastily raised, raw, un- 
disciplined army opposed the advance of Von der Tann. 
Near Gien, Cosne, and Beaugency, at Orleans and in 
its neighbourhood — places sacred also to the patriotic 
exploits of la bonne Lorraine — the most furious engage- 
ments were fought. After them the broken army re- 
treated finally behind France's last line of defence — the 
Loire. The new stone-work on the bridges at Beaugency, 
Gien, and many other places tells a significant story. 

Even now the strategic importance of the Loire is 
great, and fully recognised by the French military 
authorities. Once the bridges are broken the South- 
West of France has an immensely strong natural line 
of defence. 

As for the characteristics of the Loire — its personality 
— never was there a river with one more peculiar or con- 
tradictory. Capricious as a woman, merciless, treacher- 
ous, very swift — at times it covers barely a third of its 
sandy bed, at others it rolls a large, majestic flood round 
its stately bends and down its long, broad reaches. Its 
waters, save when made yellow with rain and flood- water, 
are admirably clear — a quality which the river had in 
Pliny's time, for in his " Historia Naturalis," Lib. IV, C. 
XVIII, he calls it " flumen clarum Liger." Moreover, 
they are faintly purgative and have the invaluable 
quality of dissolving soap quickly and being specially 
suitable for laundry purposes. 

In the upper parts of its course the river has eaten 



XX THE LOIRE 

its way through stupendous gorges, which form the 
heart of some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in 
France. Then it crosses the Plaine du Forez, disappears 
again between gorges slightly less savage, and emerges 
at Roanne to flow henceforward between low banks, or 
coteaux, to the sea. Between Roanne and Sancerre it 
cannot be called strikingly beautiful. Savage, morose, 
choked frequently with islands or long banks of sand, 
its appearance has little graciousness, and it is at its best 
in the flood times, when it has at least the attraction of 
force. But below Orleans — at Blois and Tours, and again 
below Ancenis — the river has at all times a magnificence 
perhaps due partly, in some subtle way, to the magic 
of association, which no one who has seen it is likely 
to forget. Innumerable writers have testified to the 
peculiar effect it has on the observer. " Elle est le moins 
loquace et le plus indolent des fleuves," writes M. E. 
Montegut, " soit qu'elle traine des eaux paresseuses sur 
son lit de sables alternativement alteres ou noyes, soit 
qu'elle submerge ses rives, elle traverse la vallee comme 
etrangere au spectacle qu'elle baigne." Count Imbart 
de la Tour describes it as " Une maitresse capricieuse et 
jalouse qui ne veut pas etre negligee, et dont il faut sans 
cesse s'occuper." Referring to the general appearance 
of the Loire (poets call it just as frequently " blonde " 
as " bleue "), he observes : " La couleur des eaux de 
la Loire varie d'une fa^on singuliere, suivant I'etat du 
temps et les affluents qu'elle re9oit. Sa toilette est 
variee, passe du bleu au jaune, du vert au noir ; c'est le 
vetement d'une capriceuse dont la parure est change- 
ante." 

It is not wanting in severer critics. Most writers. 



WHAT THE LOIRE MEANS TO FRANCE xxi 

naturally enough, deplore its savage crues, which, 
rising sometimes in as short a space of time as twenty- 
four hours, are the scourge of the Orl^annais and Anjou. 
Guy Coquille, the historian of the Nivernais, remarks of 
it : "La Loire fait grand dommage par son inconstance, 
car estant sablonneuse, et ses rives estant de terre legere, 
elle change sou vent son cours et son profond, jettant 
grande quantite de sable es-lieux ou soulait estre le pro- 
fond, et faisant le profond es-lieux ou soulait estre le 
sable." 

To take a more modern writer, Henri Beyle (Stendhal) 
in one of his books has a dig at the river. " La Loire," 
he says, " est ridicule a force d'iles. Une ile doit 
etre une exception pour un fleuve bien appris, mais 
pour la Loire I'ile est la regie, de fa9on que le fleuve, 
tou jours divise en deux ou trois branches, manque d'eau 
partout." The writer, however, of all those who have 
dealt with this fascinating subject, who has given the 
most accurate and suggestive description of the Loire 
is probably Mr. Henry James, who refers to it frequently 
in his book " A Little Tour in France." In one passage 
he writes : "It (the Loire) is a very fitful stream, and is 
sometimes observed to run thin and expose all the 
crudities of its channel — a great defect certainly in a 
river which is so much depended upon to give an air to 
the place it waters. But I speak of it as I saw it last, 
full, tranquil, powerful, bending in large slow curves 
and sending back half the light of the sky. Nothing can 
be finer than the view of its course that you get from the 
battlements and terraces of Amboise." Again he says : 
" The Loire gives a great ' style ' to a landscape of which 
the features are not, as the phrase is, prominent, and 



xxii THE LOIRE 

carries the eye to distances even more poetic than the 
green horizons of Touraine." He is speaking in both 
these passages, it should perhaps be added, of the Loire 
below Orleans. 

For most people, led astray, perhaps, by Joanne's 
guide to the Loire, which thinks half the river bareh^ 
worth mentioning, the Loire begins for all practical 
purposes at Orleans. It is true that save at certain 
spots such as Sancerre it is not seen at its best be- 
tween Orleans and Roanne, but at Orleans it has 
already accomplished more than half its long journey 
to the sea. 

He who follows the Loire's course from the source 
to the mouth has the experience of travelling right 
up and through the heart of France, of seeing some of 
its finest mountain scenery, some of its most desolate 
plains and, finally, some of its richest territories in that 
district which has been so often called " The Garden of 
France." The Loire Valley is an epitome of the whole 
country. Beginning where Provencal is a language more 
widely spoken than French, it flows to within a two- 
hours' railway journey of Paris, then turns westward to- 
wards the ancient and powerful capital city of Brittany, 
Nantes — passing, meanwhile, through a country rich in 
those wonderful chateaux of the French Royal House 
and of the French nobility, which have made Touraine 
famous throughout Europe. Certainly, more than any 
other river in France, the Loire justifies the appellation 
of " Ze fleuve national.''^ 



THE LOIRE 

CHAPTER I 

THE SOURCE 



SOURCES of great rivers invite discovery just as 
^ all mountain peaks seem to utter a silent challenge 
to the traveller to scale them. I happened to be at Le 
Puy in the Velay, in a gentle end of May — I had 
roamed there from Provence by way of Avignon and 
Lyons — so that to visit the source of the Loire was 
not to be avoided. It was the one " sight " there 
was no reasonable excuse for not seeing. Before 
making the expedition, beyond the fact that it gave 
its name to the department in which I happened to be 
staying, the Loire was a mere word to me, without 
significance, and it had not entered my head that in 
the future it might be something more. The admir- 
able Joanne, consulted on the subject of the source, 
informed me that it was on the slope of Gerbier de 
Jones (5200 feet), which is the second highest peak of 
the Cevennes. Apparently later in the year it was a 
recognised excursion, so the hotel people informed me, 
" but even now, by going to Les Estables by the diligence, 
sleeping there and proceeding on foot in the morning. 
. . ." I thanked Madame, buckled on my riicksack, and 

B 



2 THE LOIRE 

set out bravely to walk the whole way. I fell first by 
taking the tramcar to Brives, where the Loire is 
sufficiently wide and. well-behaved to float a crowd 
of coracles, and even a small rowing-boat. Thence 
I continued up the long road to Arssac and Le 
Monastier, in step with a bull-necked man in brown 
corduroys, his waist girdled by a red sash, with a 
bottle of wine sticking out of each pocket, who 
persistently informed me that my destination was 
didblement cold. With the perspiration running from 
me in a continuous stream I greeted this remark with 
a cheerful grin ; I should have welcomed a few minutes 
at the North Pole just then. My rucksack already 
was growing heavy on my shoulders, and I had barely 
passed the beautiful rocky hill of St. Maurice, whose 
further side sank steeply to the river-bed, and left 
behind me the restored castle of Bouzols perched on 
its commanding rock, when I heard afar off the whirring 
buzz of the auto. I waited, undecided, until it was 
upon me : then succumbed. 

All the windows of the 'bus were shut and it was 
full, so that the atmosphere can be described only 
as terrific. A spreading woman in black, with a 
row of little round buttons down the middle of her 
flat chest that piqued me to pull them (they were 
like the stops of a small organ) moved a little on one 
side, while a very fat Abbe did the same on the other, 
so between the two of them I was securely wedged. 

We were certainly a curious company in the auto. 
Just opposite to me sat a sombre Auvergnat in a soft 
black felt hat with a broad brim, a black silk tie twisted 
with the artistic abandon of Chelsea, black overall and 



THE SOURCE 3 

trousers. He had black hair, eyebrows, moustache 
and imperial, grey -green eyes, and his cheeks were 
warmed to a rich brown by sun and exposure ; but his 
expression was curiously stony. One could imagine 
him stolidly flogging his wife in moments of domestic 
discontent. Next him, on the left, was a bearded satyr 
of a commis-voyageur (in wines) whom I was to meet 
later on ; and on his other side sat a Zouave, invalided 
home, who was perspiring freely in his heavy jupe- 
culotte. Besides these, there were a number of rather 
drunken peasants in blue blouses, and a shy tout whose 
" line " was cheap enlargements of photographs, in 
hideous gilt frames. But the most singular individual 
of them all turned out to be the Abbe, in whose squashy 
flesh my elbow — quite against my inclination- — was 
proving something of a thorn. 

Priests, like women, are apt to have extremes of 
qualities, good or bad, and on the rare occasions when 
they happen, for instance, to be rude, they are nearly 
always frightfully rude. This priest's rudeness was 
beyond superlatives : he positively lashed the com- 
pany with his inquisitiveness. He interrogated the 
Auvergnat and the commercial traveller first, demand- 
ing their names, ages, places of birth, destination, and 
average attendance at Mass, absorbing the information 
freely accorded to him, with a series of non-committal 
grunts. Then he tackled the Zouave ; what was the 
matter with him ; where was he going ? Amiable 
and well-mannered, like the majority of militaires, 
the Zouave explained that he had a bullet wound in 
his shoulder which refused to heal, and that he had 
in consequence been invalided home, to Le Monastier. 



4 THE LOIRE 

" A bullet wound ! " roared the Abbe. That was 
nothing, once the bullet had been extracted, and 
soldiers always recovered quickly; to do so was, 
in fact, their business. The Zouave flushed a little, 
and seemed uncertain whether to lose his temper or to 
faint ; and while I was trembling — so far as exigencies 
of space allowed me a tremor — lest this redoubtable 
Abbe should turn and begin again on me, the auto 
entered the rough street of Le Monastier, and drew 
up suddenly outside its " bureau." 

I emerged limp and reduced in bulk, having a lively 
sympathy just then with the survivors of the Black 
Hole of Calcutta, and staggered rather than walked 
into the little draper's shop which served as office 
for the courrier, to pay my fare. While I was picking 
up my change from the counter, I felt suddenly soft 
hands fumbling at my shoulder. Noticing in a looking- 
glass opposite that they belonged to a tall girl with 
bright cheeks and dark active eyes, who wore a little 
round lace cap on her head, I allowed them to continue, 
not without excitement. Eventually they succeeded 
in unhooking my riicksack, for that apparently was their 
object, and once possessed of it, their owner walked 
to the door, announcing laconically, over her shoulder, 
the single word " Dejeuner." 

She went, taking great strides with her long legs, and, 
spellbound, I followed. I would have followed her any- 
where, but after crossing a road and turning a corner, 
our destination turned out to be a little shabby inn — the 
" Hotel Ponsonaille " — under the shadow of the church. 

My captor hung my rucksack on a peg and ushered me 
through the dark outer room into the parlour where the 



THE SOURCE 



other guests were already seated at a round table. This 
evidently was the house — there is always one in every 




Scene at Le Monastier — Market-day- 
little town — for commercials ; without them what 
would the traveller do in out-of-the-way parts of France ? 
The " commercial " always sees that his food is abun- 



6 THE LOIRE 

dant, good, and cheap. All the company were commis- 
voyageurs except myself and the inevitable young 
German couple. On my arrival the feast began ; 
napkins were tucked into expansive necks, and the 
polite buzz of " Servez-vous, Monsieur," mingled with 
the ceremonial filling of one's neighbour's glass. Chance 
threw me next to the elderly bearded gentleman I had 
observed in the auto. He started talking at once of 
wine and love. Was I married ? No, — then how was I 
travelling ? Blushingly I admitted that it was un- 
accompanied, and he lay back in his chair and shook 
with laughter. " Ah," he said, " but your women are 
not amorous. It is very different here, eh, ma chattel'^ 
he added, addressing the girl who was replenishing the 
wine bottles. He ogled her with rather bleary eyes — 
winking to me, as a hint that he had a terrible way 
with the women — and was greeted with the " snub 
distinct," most neatly administered. He then forsook 
the divine passion and took to politics, accusing me in 
his discomfiture of having taken his Egypt, of casting en- 
vious eyes on his Morocco. I assured him that as far 
as I personally was concerned, Egypt was a mere name ; 
I had taken it from no one, and as for Morocco, he was 
welcome to it, if he could get it. He clutched his beard 
furiously, and looked as if he meant to fight it out with 
me, until a deprecatory chorus of " Steady ! it is the 
entente cordiale now, you know," brought about a 
sudden change of front. The thunderstorm passed over, 
he called for two more bottles of wine, filled my glass, 
and his own, drank my health, and proceeded to do 
business. He represented a house at Dijon, the finest, 
etc. etc. Might he send me a barrique, half a barrique. 



THE SOURCE 7 

of this wine, or of this ? I fancy I ordered enough wine 
to float an ironclad before I could escape, but, thank 
Heaven, I forgot to give him my address ! 

There were some hours to wait before the cart started 
from Le Monastier to Les Estables, so that I had an 
opportunity of exploring thoroughly the town where 
Stevenson spent " about a month of fine days," and 
ended his stay by purchasing the dnesse Modestine. 
Its local importance — ^though it contains less than four 
yif>usand souls — is considerable, for it forms a centre 
for the wild, inaccessible districts that surround it on all 
sides. Its situation, some fifteen miles from Le Puy and 
three thousand feet above the level of the sea, under the 
crest of a rocky hill at the head of the green valley of 
the Gazeille, is remarkably fine, but the town itself, 
like many upland towns in Great Britain no less than 
in France, is squalid, dirty, and unprepossessing. The 
houses — the old practically undistinguishable from the 
new — are built of black lava-blocks stuck roughly 
together and roofed, as all villages are roofed in this 
district, with red tiles. Seen from some distance away, 
the town looks its best — ^you miss the squalor that a 
close inspection reveals — and in the brilliant sunshine, 
the group of dark, bright-roofed dwellings nestling in its 
vivid green setting on the side of the rock-crowned hill 
makes a charming picture. I did not get this general 
view, however, until later, and my first impressions of 
the town itself — as I walked up and down the one long 
untidy main street, turned into narrow alleys covered 
with filth and hardly wide enough for a pedestrian and an 
oxen-cart to pass at once, or prowled across the naked 
squares full of garbage, dirty children, and adventurous 



8 THE LOIRE 

pigs — were that it was " picturesque " rather than 
beautiful. It is not, however, without interesting 
buildings, of which the most important is the church, 
with its "striped" Romanesque fa9ade. It contains a 
fine Renaissance chapel, some curious frescoes, and the 
relics of St. Theofred (locally St. Chaffre). 

Behind the church is the more considerable of the 
open spaces, which has, in the middle, a green tree. 
At the top of it is a long arcaded building, once part of 
the monastery from which the place takes its name. 
This monastery was founded in the seventh century by 
St. Calmin, but largely reconstructed in the eighteenth 
century — 1754, to be exact. The buildings are now 
used for various municipal purposes. Further back 
still is the castle of the abbey, dark and massive with 
its bulging round towers. It has been turned into a 
dwelling-house, has windows knocked in its walls, and 
is covered with a " cottage " roof of red tiles. Outside 
it is another dirtier open space, the Place du Foiral, 
where a sheep and cattle - market is held. It slopes 
uphill, and is adorned by a fountain and a stone 
cross. Higher still, dominating the castle and the 
town, is the line of red, craggy rocks of La Moulette, 
that burst like jagged bones out of the smooth green 
turf. 

In the narrow main street there are one or two houses 
which from their carved-stone doorways and pediments 
seem to suggest that the town has seen better days. 
At one time, before Richelieu's work of centralisation 
was completed, it was a kind of mountain capital 
for the surrounding gentry, and Stevenson, I fancy, 
records somewhere that one dashing gentleman lost 



THE SOURCE 9 

his entire fortune here in high Uving. It is difficult to 
see how on earth he could have managed it. 

I have said that the town was unprepossessing, but, 
looking back, I find that it was nevertheless pervaded by 
a certain quiet gaiety, a quaint brightness, not at first 
seizable, caused by the presence of the lace-makers. 




Lace-makers, Haute Loire 

Almost every available woman and girl in the whole of 
the department is, when lace is in favour, a dentelliere. 
Certainly at nearly every window and open doorway 
in Le Monastier, a group of them could be seen, dressed 
in their picturesque caps, their active fingers moving 
quickly over the cushions, among the bright-coloured 
clattering bobbins. Lace-making is a handicraft de- 
manding so much skill that it attains almost to the 



10 THE LOIRE 

dignity of a fine art, and the practice of it lends a touch 
of nobility to squalid surroundings, and has, besides, 
this quality of cheerfulness, to which I have referred. 

Avec les mains^ la langue aussi travaille. 
On prie, on chante, on dit son petit mot 
Sur I'oeil voisin dont on cherche la paille^ 
Et, du pied gauche^ on berce le marmot. . . . 

For these mountain-dwellers, imprisoned until modern 
times in their narrow stone cottages for nearly half the 
year, its cheerfulness no doubt was an important factor 
in its favour. 

Another local industry is the making of sabots, and I 
remember looking into a long, dark shop, filled with 
rows of gleaming new sabots — elegant ones for small 
and dainty feet, and massive ones for the heavy — and 
seeing the artist at his work, with his spectacles half off 
the end of his nose. 

Some good examples of the lace made locally are to be 
seen in a small church at the far end (towards Ardeche 
and away from Le Puy) of the main street, where all the 
altars and statues of the saints are draped with it. This 
is a lovely little twelfth- century building, dedicated to 
St. Jean, and not considered worthy of mention by Joanne. 
It is cool as a crypt, with naive painted images in every 
corner, and wooden forms to sit on ; while through the 
open door at the west end is heard the soothing plash 
and tinkle of running water. There is a little plateau out- 
side, bounded by a low stone wall which grows warm in 
the sun and is favoured as a place of meditation by the 
old men. Here you can sit and watch the brook for 
miles, as it tumbles from one rocky ledge to another, 
down the green valley. Stevenson, in a discarded first 



THE SOURCE 11 

chapter to his " Travels with a Donkey," makes the 
following observations about the general aspect of the 
countryside, as seen from this spot : 

" The mean level of the country is a little more than 
three thousand feet above the sea, which makes the 
atmosphere proportionately brisk and wholesome. There 
is little timber except pines, and the greater part of 
the country lies in moorland pasture. The country is 
wild and tumbled rather than commanding; an up- 
land rather than a mountain district ; and the most 
striking, as well as the most agreeable, scenery lies low 
beside the rivers. There, indeed, you will find many 
corners that take the fancy, such as made the English 
noble choose his grave by a Swiss streamlet, where 
Nature is at her freshest, and looks as young as on the 
seventh morning. Such a place is the course of the 
Gazeille, where it waters the common of Le Monastier, 
and thence downward till it joins the Loire ; a place to 
hear birds singing ; a place for lovers to frequent. The 
name of the river was perhaps suggested by the sound of 
its passage over the stones, for it is a great warbler, and 
at night, after I was in bed in Monastier, I could hear 
it go singing down the valley till I fell asleep." 

The courrier to Les Estables, which starts from a 
very modest inn half-way up the street, was a common 
affair compared with the dashing auto, which links Le 
Monastier with Le Puy within an hour. It was a small 
cheap-looking wagonette " fitted up " at home, with a 
rough deal box inside the splash-board to hold the 
parcels and the letter-bag, and drawn by a ragged, bony, 
bay horse that gave the impression that it was unable 
to bend its loiees. There were four other passengers 



12 



THE LOIRE 



besides the driver and myself, and far more luggage 
than would go into the wooden box. The driver, brown- 
eyed and mild-looking, with a caressing voice, was 
popular in the village. He walked along, holding his 




The Gazeille 



whip high up and using it as a walking-stick, and 
stopped to gossip at every doorstep on the way. His 
English passenger seemed to be the chief subject of 
conversation. I heard him time after time repeat the 
fact of my nationality, my intention of sleeping at Les 



THE SOURCE 13 

Estables, of visiting Gerbier de Jones, and each little 
group of lace-makers paused in their work to examine 
me with a frank interest that was altogether without 
offence or suggestion of ill-manners. It took very 
nearly an hour to get out of the town, the passengers 
walking all the way, like the driver. It was on foot, 
indeed, that we made the greater part of the journey, 
for not even the most inhuman traveller would have 
subjected our sorry nag to a heavier load than the 
driver, the wagonette, and the packages. Indeed, for 
a great part of the way I energetically pushed. 

For the twelve miles between Le Monastier and Les 
Estables the road climbs up a beautiful valley, in the 
midst of which rushes and falls a cold, clear torrent. A 
very amiable, intelligent peasant who walked next to 
me — he turned out to be the innkeeper of a tiny hamlet 
about half-way on our journey, which may account for 
his amiability — impressed upon me that it was full of 
trout. At this hamlet he and another passenger got 
down. It was a squalid collection of hovels, and the 
young woman who came to meet my friend of the 
trout carried in her arms a baby whose face was swollen 
and blotched with boils, and who had infected its mother 
by kissing her. The sight made my heart sink. I must 
confess that I nearly turned back, and would have done 
so had not the brilliant sunshine seemed to assure me 
that, if the worst came to the worst, I could sleep out 
of doors. 

The two passengers who, with me, were continuing 
to the end, were a young married couple dressed in deep 
black — the woman gay, talkative, and intelligent, with 
some of the polish that comes from being a domestic 



14 THE LOIRE 

servant in a pleasant household ; the man morose, with 
a light moustache and blue eyes. It seemed to be his 
wife who was the native of the place ; the man perhaps 
was merely going to pay a formal visit to his mother- 
in-law. They both seemed very clean and civilised to 
be going to such a wild part, and I was reminded faintly 
of Bel-Ami's visit to his parents in their rough Nor- 
mandy home. 

The higher we got, the barer and more treeless became 
the valley. But the grass slopes near Les Estables were 
of a most brilliant green, lit up here and there with the 
rich gold of the boutons d'or (king-cups), the paler tint 
of the daffodils, or the radiant blue of the violettes 
bdtardes. Later in the year, the vivacious young wife 
explained to me, there were great blue expanses of 
irises and also of the true violets, which grew round Les 
Estables in great quantities, together with many kinds 
of medicinal herbs. In this cold district, however, 
everything was two months behindhand, she added. 

And how bitterly cold, too, it was suddenly become — 
after the burning, blazing day ! The wind rose and 
whistled over the slopes which, as the sun sank, became 
more and more bleak. All round were the fantastically 
shaped peaks and cones of the Cevennes. In the dawn 
of the earth's history, this particular district appears to 
have suffered from violent and prolonged volcanic up- 
heavals, during which the liquid lava poured from the 
craters in a molten stream, cooled and hardened into 
the monstrous shapes and patterns that the landscape 
now displays. The Mezenc itself, the highest point of 
the Cevennes (5750 feet), is the least peculiar in shape 
of any, and from a distance, from the side of Les 



THE SOURCE 15 

Estables, its contour is not unlike a typical English 
down. 

The village of Les Estables, when at last we reached 
it, was beyond description desolate. Its squalid stone 
houses — house and cattle stall in one — stood as close 
as they could get to one another, with their backs 
turned to the sweeping winds, from which there was 
nothing to protect them. The village street was covered 
with slime, dung, and large stones, making it difficult 
for the exhausted horse to drag the wagonette even as 
far as the inn where its feed awaited it. The only 
building larger than a hovel — besides the uninteresting 
modern church — was the combined Mairie, National 
School, Post and Telegraph office, which stood half-way 
up the street and just opposite our stopping-place. 
According to Joanne, the village contains over a thou- 
sand inhabitants, though it is hard to see where and 
on what they live. That there must be some consider- 
able coming and going, however, was proved by the 
inordinate number of " hotels " the place contained, 
each one of which looked more forbidding than the last. 

The chalet of the Syndicat d'Initiative du Velay is a 
little way out of the village on the bare slope of the 
Mezenc, and I have never set foot in an inn with greater 
thankfulness. I was horribly cold, and — it must be' 
owned' — suffering from "the blues." I envied the 
married couple (from whom I parted affectionately and 
with regret) their warm greetings and homely welcome. 
The salle-d-manger of the chalet, admirably clean and 
hygienic, was utterly lugubrious, reminding me of the 
sanatorium at school, when no one else was ceger. The 
woman, too, who waited on me had all the air of supe- 



16 THE LOIRE 

rior cleanliness and capacity that is characteristic of a 
" matron." She laid my dinner at one end of the long 
table, and brought me a very small lamp that just 
illuminated my end of the room, and then left me to 
eat my chill and solitary meal. I should perhaps have 
screamed if there had been anyone else but herself, 
her husband, and daughter to hear ; but there wasn't, 
so I ate instead. A great brass horn on the sideboard 
faced me during the meal, and suggested — unwilling 
mountaineer that I was — a whole nightmare of possi- 
bilities. I found no solace afterwards in the back 
numbers of unreadable journals, in the organ of the 
T.C.F. (that admirable institution), nor in the two odd 
volumes of Chateaubriand's " Genie du Christianisme," 
which, with a very dull visitor's book, formed the 
library. I went to bed soon, and as 1 emptied my 
pockets on to the dressing-table I made the discovery 
— culminating point of misery — that I had lost the gold 
coin on which I was relying to last me until my return 
to Le Puy. It was no good searching for it — it was 
gone. After I had paid my bill in the morning I should 
have less than two francs between me and starvation. 
And to-morrow was Ascension Day, a public holiday. 
If I wired, I should not be able to get an answer, as the 
office would be shut. 

I lay awake for hours in bed, listening to the wind 
howling and screaming outside, wishing with all my 
heart that I were back in some pleasant lowland where 
it is always afternoon, and cursing heartily the Loire 
for having such an inaccessible source. . . . 

In the morning, at a few minutes before five o'clock, 
a haggard explorer, in pyjamas, with chattering teeth 



THE SOURCE 17 

and dishevelled hair, " might have been seen " pulling 
aside the curtain of his bedroom window in the Chalet 
du Mezenc. No sooner, however, had this been ac- 
complished than his teeth ceased to chatter, and his 
spirits rose like mercury. For the sun was up — O sol 
pulcher, O laudande ! — and those bare, dismal slopes, 
across which the wind had swept the night before, 
were now the most beautiful and vivid green, and 
looked under the clear blue as though they might have 
been the pasture lands of Paradise. On one side 
waved a pale acre of daffodils, large violets in the 
more sheltered places reflected the azure of the sky, 
while in the marshy ground by the streams the houtons 
d'or made a rich golden splash. As quickly as could 
be I breakfasted, and before seven o'clock I was well 
on the southward road towards Gerbier de Jones, with 
the large sum of francs 1.70 in my trouser-pocket. 
But the air was too sparkling and keen to allow such 
tedious thoughts as ways and means to bother one. 

The hill-slopes all round Les Estables are quite bare, 
covered with short rich grass, flowers, and herbs ; but 
with the larks singing high up in the heavens, and 
the sun glittering on a hundred little rivulets distilled 
from the snow that lingers in the sheltered clefts, they 
had a rare beauty of their own. I met a curious family 
just outside the village, disposed on two horses. The 
two girls rode astride on one of them, and the man 
and his wife on the other. They looked dour and 
sombre, and were dressed in their holiday black, the 
only spot of colour being in the elaborate caps of the 
women, the white " tails " of which fluttered in the 
wind. After crossing the brow of a low hill which now 
c 



18 THE LOIRE 

hid Les Estables from sight, I passed the border into 
Ardeche. The scenery changed. On the right, at the 
bottom of the slope, was a dark pine wood ; on the 
left, under a small cliff, was a little sandy pond into 
which poured innumerable rivulets. The country on both 
sides of the road became increasingly wooded, and after 
about another half-hour of steady going I saw all at 
once — nestling at the foot of a thick coppice of beech 
and fir trees that grew up the hillside below me, to 
the right — in a lovely green cup, surrounded by steep 
grass slopes, the picturesque ruins of La Chartreuse de 
Bonnefoy. These consist of a confused mass of fallen 
and crumbling masonry, the square tower of the church 
in good preservation, the walls of the nave and chancel 
clearly defined, an ancient round tower half demolished, 
and the high wall of what appears to be a fayade 
dating from the early part of the eighteenth century. 
There is another mass of ruined buildings — containing 
many rooms half underground, still in good preservation 
— down by the brook (the Veyradeyre) that skirts the 
monastery on the farther side. A tall, shuttered house, 
built apparently out of the loose stone from the ruins, 
stands at one end of them facing an open space of grass 
land, and on the slope of the hill, immediately below the 
road, is a long, massive stone barn. 

A native who emerged from this building, after 
throwing two stones with admirable aim at a couple 
of dogs who looked as though they meant to tear me 
to pieces, gave me permission to look round, and in- 
formed me that the tall stone house was a cheese 
tactoTj. I thought the Chartreuse de Bonnefoy the 
most " romantic " ruin — in a Waverley novel and Mrs. 



THE SOURCE 19 

Radcliffe sense — ^that I had ever seen. Falling off a 
crumbling wall into a hole in the lower part of the 
ruins, I found myself in a perfect network of passages 
and stone cells. At the far end of one of the darkest 
of them was a small rivulet that ran into a black, 
cavernous hole. Not having a match with me, I threw 
a precautionary stone before going further, and it fell 
some thirty feet away with a loud " plomb " that 
must have indicated a considerable depth of water. 
Under the level of the church there was another long 
series of underground vaults into which it would have 
been possible to climb, but in peering down through the 
round hole that led to them I thought I discerned 
cheeses in the dim light, and reflected that probably 
they were connected by an underground passage with 
the factory. In any case, I left them unexplored, and 
with soiled clothes and barked shins, feeling at least 
ten years younger, after an adventure that the " Boy's 
Own Paper " itself could not have surpassed, I climbed 
up again, by an overgrown and decaying pathway, into the 
main road. I sat and rested on a bridge over a small 
waterfall, and looked down for a few minutes at the 
dark ruins in their verdant setting, unwilling to leave 
them. A peasant, who stopped to talk on his way 
into Les Estables, told me that the property, including 
the cheese factory, was owned by a gentleman " four 
or five times a millionaire," and that the destruction 
of the monastery had taken place in the " Religious 
Wars." Which of the several religious wars that have 
been waged in that country was responsible, he did 
not make clear. Joanne remarks that the monastery 
was founded in 1156 by one of the Seigneurs of 
Mezenc. 



20 THE LOIRE 

From this point could be seen one of the most 
curious of all the odd-shaped cones of the Cevennes 
— it had a high, rocky summit, but looked as though 
its final peak had been cut off clean with a knife, 
leaving the top absolutely smooth and flat. The road 
now encircled the base of a hill and passed through 
a fresh beech wood, and in the sunshine the bright 
green leaves seemed to shimmer and twinkle like fairy 
things. As I walked farther into Ardeche the scenery 
became still more varied and astonishing. There were 
deep wooded gorges, hill-slopes at once precipitous and 
tree-covered ; vistas of a seemingly unending sea of 
billowy peaks ; rushing, laughing streams ; rocks of a 
curious greenish tint that looked as though they were 
entirely composed of some kind of metal that luckily 
had escaped the notice of the mining specialist. After 
a mile or two, during which the road had seemed to 
be leading in a wrong direction, it doubled straight 
back on its tracks on the other side of an intervening 
hill (which it had been encircling) ; passed a farm ; then 
traversed another and thicker beech wood where the 
leaves of the trees were only just beginning to shoot, 
and crossed an open level of woodland where some 
cattle were grazing. Here the road turned to the left, 
and the chalet at the foot of Mont Gerbier de Jones 
came into view. 

For some way back I had noticed the sharp peak of 
the Gerbier de Jones without realising its identity. 
The slim " aiguille " of rock that looked in the distance 
almost as though you might encircle it with your arms, 
seemed hardly to merit the dignity of being called a 
mountain. When examined more closely, however, its 



THE SOURCE 21 

curious peak, which has been compared in shape to a 
pine-cone, exacts respect. It is astonishingly abrupt and 
alone and individual, rising straight up, sharply, out of 
its surrounding pastures. The ascent is very painful and 
unpleasant, owing to the sharp, loose stones with which 
its sides are covered, but, if accomplished, should not 
take more than a quarter of an hour. From the top 
lies spread out before one, the most extraordinary, 
panoramic view (surpassing that from the Mezenc), 
which is to be had in what is one of the strangest 
districts in Europe. Mountains, plains, gorges, woods, 
pastures, rivers : a hundred miles of France whose 
modelling is like that of a stormy sea, with range after 
range of hills stretching like waves arrested in their 
course, and petrified into immobility. The Alps, the 
Cevennes, the Sues of the Velay, Mont Pilat — are all to 
be seen, while seven hundred feet below, begins, a tiny 
trickle, the longest river in France. ... 

The chalet at the base of the mountain, as I had been 
warned, was not yet open, and being exhausted through 
want of food, I called at the farm just below it, which 
is known as the " Ferme de la Loire " — my heart 
beating rather quickly now that I had at last reached the 
object of my journey. I found the farmer swilling out 
his dark, cavernous ecurie with water that poured cold 
and sparkling from a wooden pipe that he held in his 
hand, but he received me hospitably, and led me 
through into an even darker kitchen and living-room, 
where an old, motionless woman was sitting, with closed 
eyes, at the table. While I was refreshing myself with 
some cheese, black bread, and sour red wine, the farmer 
told me b-js,news. It had been so bitterly cold not more 



22 



THE LOIRE 



than seven days ago, that to have gone out would have 
meant almost certain death ! (Not till then did I 
realise what it meant to live at an altitude of over 4500 




The Source 



feet.) I w^as the first, he told me, to visit the mountain 
in 1911. 

But, unable any longer to conceal my impatience to 



THE SOURCE 23 

hear about the Loire, I asked him eagerly how far away 
was the source, explaining to him that I had come 
specially from Le Puy to see it. With an unexpected 
dramatic sense, with a touch of awe almost, he pointed 
to where the water could be heard gurgling out of the 
pipe which he had dropped : " There," he said, " you 
have it in my stable. That is the veritable source of 
the Loire ! " 

It was an emotional moment. We stood up. I 
wondered whether a toast of some kind should be drunk, 
and not knowing exactly what to do, I walked out 
and examined the baby river that was to grow so huge 
(and in the winter such a terrible monster), as it wound 
its seven hundred miles through the heart of France to 
the sea. To the sea ! Suddenly the idea came to me, 
and pouring the refreshing water over my hands and 
face, I registered a little vow that I would follow it from 
this point till I could follow it no more. I would go on a 
pilgrimage from Gerbier de Jones to St. Nazaire ! 
I explained my resolution to the farmer, and we shook 
hands in the cool twilight of the stable. Then I walked 
out into the sunshine and started on my way. 



CHAPTER II 

GOUDET 

T\OWN the green squashy meadows I went, among 
-^-^ the dappled cows, with something of the exaltation 
of a fanatic. It gave me a simple pleasure to leap 
across the tiny stream from time to time, though this 
feat, even before the farm was lost to sight, be- 
came impossible. Within a mile from its source, just 
below a tumbledown stone cottage roofed with thatch, 
the Loire is joined by a much more considerable stream 
that rises near the Chartreuse de Bonnefoy, and is 
called locally the Aygue-Nere (Eau-Noire) from the 
black lava rocks over which it runs. This, according 
to M. Joanne, who shares the infallibility of Baedeker, 
is the true and longest branch, though the other has the 
name, and will assuredly keep it. In any case the two 
streams together form a brook " too broad for leaping." 
It was a beautiful spot. The doubled stream made a 
clear, shallow pool about thirty feet wide, overhung on 
the left-hand side by beech trees. At the back rose the 
curious stone nob of Gerbier de Jones, unique in its 
startlingly original effect. A little below this point, at 
the first bridge, by which is an old wooden sawmill, the 
traveller to the nearest village, Ste Eulalie, must leave 
the river bank, to which the road has hitherto closely 
kept, and follow the road uphill, taking the turning to 

24 



GOUDET 25 

the left when the roads branch. Ste EulaHe, the first 
village on the Loire, is a small, red-roofed place with an 
inn or two and a brand-new post office. It stands in a 
lovely fresh setting, and is rather less squalid in its 
general appearance than many of these higher villages, 
a fact which is perhaps accounted for by the importance 
of its annual Foire aux Violettes, held on the 12th of 
July. Here come chemists, perfumers, and merchants 
from Lyons, Nimes, Marseilles, and Grasse, to buy the 
Mezenc violets and all kinds of herbs used in the 
manufacture of scents and essences, and particularly 
the herb called pensees sauvages. The true violet of 
the Mezenc is large and of a splendid deep purple, and 
has a lovely perfume. It grows in great profusion and 
luxuriance, and the villagers from all the hamlets round 
flock to the fair, each with his sweetly-scented basket 
full of the dried flowers. The gathering takes place 
either at the end of May, or in the first fortnight of 
June, according to the nature of the spring, and the 
flowers are then dried under cover, away from the sun. 
Unfortunately the year was so backward that the true 
violets were hardly out, so that 1 did not see the country 
in the glorious purple robe that it was to wear within a 
fortnight. From what I could gather from the patron 
at the inn who told me about it, I should imagine the 
scene on July 12th would be well worth visiting. 

From Ste Eulalie, I was advised to go by the good 
road to Issarles, and there pick up the Loire again. 
The river meanwhile flows south and west until at 
Reiutord (a hamlet named after this volte-face) it turns 
suddenly to the north, and winds among wild gorges and 
basaltic rocks to Issarles. Alas, this good road to 



26 THE LOIRE 

Issarles, admirable as its surface was, turned out to be 
one of the barest and most desolate ways it has ever 
been my lot to tread. For miles I could see it stretching 
in front of me over the grassy slopes, making wide 
and inexplicable curves. My attempt to cut off one of 
these corners, to take a bee-line, left the curves in the 
road no longer inexplicable, for very soon I found 
myself nearly up to the knees in bog. After this 
accident I met a tiny maiden of about six summers 
with large eyes that seemed perpetually wide-open and 
unblinking, like big, dark glass marbles. She was 
driving cows with a stick (and hitting them as hard as 
ever she could), and had a little back as straight as a 
princess's. I asked her how far it was to Issarles, and 
she took a finger out of her mouth, opened her eyes 
wider than ever, regarded me with a slow smile, and 
said nothing. My heart sank ; or it may have been 
another part of my anatomy, for I had had nothing to 
eat beyond a scanty breakfast at Les Estables, and the 
hard crust of bread and cheese at the Ferme de la Loire. 
My throat was parched ; my blistered tongue hung out 
like a dog's, and my general appearance must have been 
singular. Perhaps I got rather light-headed, but, in 
any case, I began to dream little dreams about a car 
filled with really nice English people, that in a minute 
or two would overtake me. I carried on long, witty, 
imaginary conversations. Never have I met such 
charming, such sympathetic people as that comfortable 
automobile contained ! I could feel myself leaning 
back on the soft cushions, feel the caress of the cool 
breeze on my forehead as we raced back to Le Puy. . . . 
Unfortunately there came no thrilling " toot-toot " 



GOUDET 27 

to spoil the harmony of the landscape and race me back 
to comfort and a cold bath. My dreams, however, had 
made the kilometres fly, and by the time I " woke up," 
1 saw the red roofs of Issarles clustering round the 
spired church in the deep valley at my feet. 

As it was Ascension Day and a general holiday, all 
the men of the village were seated along their garden 
walls in long, black lines. The girls and women sat in 
the doorways of the cottages in their most elaborate 
caps, and sometimes stood in groups across the road, 
engaged apparently in some kind of game. My appear- 
ance caused a positive convulsion of excitement. I felt 
like the Piper of Hamelin, as I marched down the village 
street to the inn, with a throng of girls and boys and 
young men at my heels. The patron, however, who was 
standing in the road, dispersed them when he saw a 
customer, and led me up a rickety wooden ladder on the 
outside of his house — the " Hotel du Chateau Blanc 
Cineys " — to the parlour, which was immediately over 
the stables. Here I bartered my last coins for a hunk 
of bread and a bottle of Beaujolais that tasted like 
nectar. It was now about three o'clock in the afternoon, 
and I was getting rather tired, and for the first time the 
question of where I intended to sleep began seriously to 
perplex me. I studied a map. There were a dozen 
villages I could get to, but they were not on the Loire. 
The only main road marked seemed to lead me back to 
Monastier, where I had no intention of ignominiously 
returning. To such places as appeared to be on the 
banks of the Loire — Salettes, Vielprat, Arlempdes, 
Goudet — ^there were no roads. The name of one of these 
villages, however, took my fancy, attracted me for some 



28 THE LOIRE 

inexplicable reason, though it was the farthest away 
and apparently the most inaccessible. Soon — ^for these 
fancies grow like mushrooms — the thing became an 
obsession. If I died for it, I must get that night to 
Goudet. ... I asked the landlord : he had never heard 
of it. Then I tried him with Salettes, which was on 
the way. Salettes he knew, but he impressed on me 
that it was impossible to get there, as there were no 
roads, " Whereas le Monastier." . . . Silently assuring 
him that I would see him damned before I would go to 
Le Monastier, I went out to make inquiries elsewhere. 
Two natives that I met on the road consulted together 
with violence in Provenyal when I asked for Salettes, 
and then turned to me, speaking with agitation in a 
barbarous, creaking French. Salettes was over there — 
they pointed away beyond a hill that rose on the other 
side of the valley — but there were no roads, and as 1 was 
a stranger to the country, I had "far better follow 
the route to Le Monas ..." I thanked them, and 
started out for Salettes. 

To take a bee-line in England, where there are easily 
recognisable landmarks, and the country undulates 
mildly and is never too much up and down, presents 
few difficulties save from farmers and gamekeepers. In 
the Cevennes, however, your bee-line (as I was to dis- 
cover) is apt to become an unending circle. I began 
by leaving on my left the blue lake of Issarles. This 
beautiful tarn is round in shape, has no apparent vent, 
and no stream running into it, and is yet teeming 
with trout that must breed elsewhere. It is over three 
hundred feet deep in the middle, and its waters are 
always at the same level. It is situated under the 



GOUDET 29 

crater of Cherchemus, and is itself an ancient crater. 
By its position it commands the three valleys of the 
Gage, the Veyradeyre, and the Loire. The latter winds 
less than a mile to the south and more than three 
hundred feet below its level. Below Issarles, the Loire 
receives the Gage and the Veyradeyre, and almost im- 
mediately enters the department of Haute Loire being 
still at a height of 3000 feet above the sea and less 
than twenty miles from its source. Clear and swift it 
runs through a wild gorge, whose greenness is sometimes 
contrasted with the red of the basalt rocks, passes Salettes 
perched above it on a steep cliff, absorbs the Mezeanne, 
passes between precipitous crags at Arlempdes, and so 
winds down to Goudet. 

I take this information at second-hand from Joanne, as 
I was unable to follow the river-bed. I struck out to cut 
off a corner and reach Salettes (and ultimately Goudet). 
I crossed first a broad moorland plateau, covered with 
firm tufts of tall grass that one had to use as stepping- 
stones. Roaming over the moor were droves of cattle, 
dogs, and small children who knew no French. The dogs 
certainly understood no English, for when I ordered a 
creature yelping at my heels that was plainly some 
relation to a wolf to " lie down," he merely waited till 
my back was turned and proceeded to bite me in the 
calf. I talked to the dogs, after that, with a small rock 
in either hand, and they understood me better. After 
crossing this moor I got into a rough, stony road — the 
first of the Vieux Chemins that were to cause me so 
much agony — passed some isolated farms, and made 
sure I was within a short distance of Salettes. I came at 
last to a most lovely gorge, at the top of which, on my 



30 THE LOIRE 

right, was a village. At the bottom of the deep cleft, 
whose almost precipitous sides were covered with pines, 
laughed and chattered an abundant brook. Flowers 
grew wherever they could find a spot, and the song of 
the birds seemed a natural expression of the twinkling 
sunlight. Avoiding the village, with a topographical 
cunning on which I prided myself, 1 plunged down into 
my fairy-valley, walked anyhow, just as I was, across 
the brook, climbed up the steep hill on the other side, 
and walked on till I came to another hamlet, and asked 
with confidence for Goudet. Before the young man I 
had questioned would answer me, he subjected me to a 
searching cross-examination. What was I travelling 
" in " ? — articles of alimentation ? Wine ? But no — 
since I was going to Goudet, so noted for its trout — it 
must be articles de peche ? I left it at that, for I found him 
as difficult to understand as he did me. I remarked on 
my inability to follow the patois, adding, with a sudden 
inspiration of politeness, that his French was, however, 
quite Parisian. He blushed all over his face with 
pleasure, assuring me with modesty that he had only 
been educated " comme paysan,^^ that his French was 
far from good, and that I must not flatter him. For 
anyone with so meagre a command of French as myself, 
this little dialogue had its humorous side ; its object, 
however, was abundantly gained. My young man 
walked with me a mile on my way to Goudet, and 
pointed out the two futaies in the distance, between 
which I must pass. On our left, some two miles off, in 
a broad deep valley, was a large, superior-looking 
village, with a good road running through it, which he 
told me was Pradelles, a name that seemed vaguely 



GOUDET 81 

familiar. He urged me to go there and give up Goudet, 
but I was quite firm, partly because I remembered 
Young's strictures on the inn. The passage runs thus : 
" The inn at Pradelles, kept by three sisters Pichots, is 
one of the worst I have met with in France. Contraction, 
poverty, dirt, and darkness." When I looked at my 
map my heart sank. Pradelles was miles out of my 
way ! Seeing that he could not move me, he said 
good-bye, and shook me warmly by the hand, and had I 
encouraged him, would no doubt have embraced me on 
either cheek. I pushed on wearily for the two futaies, 
crossed between them, came to another valley and 
another hamlet. Here a curious group was collected 
outside the door of one of the houses. A dark-haired 
man, very big and strong, aged about fifty, was seated 
on his doorstep, surrounded by girls, young men, women 
and children — about a dozen in all — who sat on the 
ground in a circle round him. He was speaking in a 
loud, harsh voice. I thought at first he was drunk and 
abusing them, but when I came nearer I made out that 
what he was saying had a kind of rhythm ; he seemed 
to be declaiming. I passed up the street, anxious not 
to appear inquisitive, but his eyes were fixed on me, 
and when I got past, he roared out to know why I did 
not stop to listen when he was speaking ! There was 
something patriarchal about the whole scene even for 
one who had no Proven9al : for a person learned in the 
patois, with an interest in folk poetry, it would doubt- 
less have had far more significance. 

The women of this village misdirected me with one 
accord, but I was brought back from the wrong road by 
a kindlier man of brigandish appearance, and started 



32 THE LOIRE 

once again upon a vieux chemin. These ancient roads 
are to be found all over the Velay. They are impossible 
for carts and barely possible — so rough are the great 
boulders with which they are strewn — for pedestrians. 
With aching feet I went on up and down hill, through 
tiny hamlets with all the women and girls sitting making 
lace in the doorways, and sometimes singing to one 
another, until at last, in the late afternoon, O blessed 
sight, a broad white highway appeared in front of me. 
Gaining it, I saw about a mile further down, a village on 
a high plateau, dominating the Loire ; evidently this, at 
last, was Goudet ! To make quite sure, I asked a farmer's 
wife, who was driving home the cattle for the night. 
" Ah, non, M'sieu'," she said, " c'est Salettes. Faut 
prendre le ch'min qui monte." . . , Accursed woman, 
accursed Salettes, accursed road that mounted ! The 
sun was now just setting, and having completed over 
twenty-five miles of rough going, I felt that I had 
walked enough, but the necessity to reach Goudet 
became even more pressing. I got on to yet another 
vieux chemin, and staggered on under the shadow of a 
low rocky hill, with a pine forest, dark and mysterious, 
on my right. It was very lonely, there was not an 
animal stirring on the hillside, and in the gloaming the 
contours of every object in the landscape were outlined 
with an exaggerated distinctness. It was a perfect 
evening, but that did not prevent each kilometre 
seeming to me like five miles. I became aware that if 
Goudet did not present itself within half an hour, I 
should fall in a heap by the wayside like a sack of old 
bones. And it just did present itself. The path emerged 
on to an open plateau, giving a view of a vast amphi- 




GOUDET. 



GOUDET 33 

theatre of hills surrounding a valley a thousand feet 
below. Then it dropped to a pine wood, plunged 
precipitously through it, and emerged at the foot just out- 
side a little sheltered village nestling by the Loire, which 
here made quiet brooding pools reflecting all the fading 
gleams in the sky. In the pine wood I had passed 
two lovers, climbing up hand in hand, but down here 
in the long white street not a soul stirred. It was like 
a charmed village in a dream-world ; and to me, dearer 
than any El Dorado. In the western sky a green 
radiance flushed with rose, lingered still, and the first 
faint stars were alight and glowing : the evening seemed 
to be catching its breath, hushed and expectant, and my 
footsteps echoed in the silence till, after passing up the 
long, straggling street, I reached the end of the village 
and the little square. 

In the Place, beneath the green spreading tree in the 
middle, there stood one individual, the first I had so far 
encountered in the village. He was in his shirt sleeves 
with a black limp hat on his head, and was looking up 
at the stars. When I approached I expected him to turn 
on me some strange unearthly countenance. I was not 
quite sure just then whether the whole thing were not a 
dream. He was human enough, however. Was this 
Goudet, I asked, and was there an inn ? It was Goudet, 
and he pointed in front of him, to the inn. " The other 
one," he said, " I keep myself. It is just below, there." 
He pointed towards the river, but without emphasis, 
being scrupulous to leave the choice entirely to me. 
Naturally I chose his inn, blurting out, as I accompanied 
him towards it, that though I had not a sou in my 
pocket, I was nevertheless reliable. He heard me 



34 THE LOIRE 

gravely, looked at me carefully, and when we arrived, 
asked nie in. We stumbled into a dark kitchen, and 
I was invited to sit and also to remain covered. A lamp 
was lighted and placed on the table between the patron 
and myself. He proceeded to examine me. In those 
moments I fancy I experienced much the same emotions 
as a prisoner on trial for his life. My heart thumped, 
and my tongue literally clave to the roof of my mouth. 
Eventually, after an examination that seemed to me 
interminable, he pronounced judgment. " But yes, I 
can see you are hon gar^on : you shall have whatever 
you want." He called his wife, a young woman in black, 
with a clean white cap and a bright, rosy, but slightly 
wrinkled face, and told her that I was very tired ; that 
some dinner must be prepared for me, and the best bed. 
Then he stood up and lifted down from a high shelf laden 
with liqueurs the familiar green bottle with its silver- 
papered neck, and label with the Helvetian cross upon 
it, and with his own hand prepared me my first and 
stiffest Pernod. Absinthe is no doubt a poison, but how 
miraculously reviving it is in small doses ! While my 
dinner was being got ready, a visitor dropped in who 
might perhaps have been a small farmer or a lawyer, for 
he could read English he told me ; he was a charming, 
well-informed man of about sixty, with a grey imperial, 
and keen grey eyes. He was greatly interested in my 
pilgrimage, and seemed to think it characteristic of my 
country. He had once before seen an Englishman at 
Goudet, many years ago, when he was a boy. He was 
travelling with an dnesse, and had written, subsequently, 
a book ! 

For dinner, Madame Bonhomme — for so my hostess 



GOUDET 35 

was called — managed to provide me at very short 
notice with quite a number of dishes ; the one I re- 
member best was the black carcass of some small 
animal served on hunks of bread soaked in the juice. 
I think it must have been cat, at least the numerous 
other cats that roamed about the house wore a dis- 
tinctly decimated look. I fell asleep immediately after 
helping myself to a delicious fried trout, and only 
woke up on hearing a sharp " splosh " followed by a 
scujRfle, to see the decimated cats bolting it as hard as 
they could gobble. Taking pity on me, kind Madame 
Bonhomme conducted me with a candle to my room, 
which was outside the inn, over the stables. It was 
spotlessly clean and comfortable to a degree Elysian, 
and there, full of gratitude, I slept the clock round. 
Amiable Monsieur Bonhomme ; most gracious and 
hospitable Madame ! May others do unto you as you 
did to me. 1 should like to give you a small advertise- 
ment, but until your Government make a few more 
roads, I fear it will not much avail. At all events, let 
me put it on record that the Hotel Rivet, Goudet, pres 
Solignac, Haute Loire, besides being clean, comfortable 
and as cheap as anyone could wish, is admirably situated 
alike for trout fishers and for artists ; and that pension- 
naires " are taken." Friends please accept this (the 
only) intimation. 



CHAPTER III 

LE PUY EN VELAY 

XT was ten o'clock and the sun was burning down 
-■- on the white roadway when I emerged from my 
apartment at the Hotel Rivet, after a (necessarily) 
exiguous ablution. Madame Bonhomme was striving 
to do up her little daughter's petticoats, the patron 
was moving about among his animals, and in front of 
the inn door four or five goats were breakfasting off 
piles of Narcissi laid out on two low wooden forms. 
Nothing could have been more peaceful, and only the 
most urgent necessity roused me to the effort of moving 
on. My hosts set before me bread and cheese and a 
bottle of thin ungenerous wine — a simple meal, but 
seasoned with the kindliness of its providers — and I set 
off to clamber " retrospectively " along the side of 
the stream to Arlempdes, the next village, three miles 
higher up. I started by rounding the base of the steep 
pine-clad hill I had come down the night before, and all 
the way to Arlempdes the scenery was of the wildest. 
The Loire was not yet a river, but an untrammelled 
mountain torrent. It was very rough going, but I 
would not for anything have missed it. Arlempdes is 
a small village, about the same size as Goudet (500 
inhabitants), but still more inaccessible. It is well worth 
visiting, however, for the beauty of the gorge at this 

36 



LE PUY EN VELAY 37 

spot, and for the ruins of its castle. This great mediaeval 
fortress, dating from the thirteenth and fifteenth 
centuries, is flanked with large towers alternately 
round and square. Its situation is magnificent, for it 
is perched on a steep basaltic rock sheer above the 
river. From its ramparts I remember reading in a 
local guide-book that the Cadet de Seneujols hurled 
the Huguenot captain, Chardonnat, into the Loire ; 
another reminder, like the grim ruins of the Chartreuse 
de Bonnefoy, of the fierceness of the religious wars in 
this district. I did not struggle on to Salettes, of foul 
memory — though I heard it was three times as large as 
Arlempdes, and situated on a commanding hill that 
slopes almost precipitously down to the river. I had 
conceived an overpowering repugnance to that place, 
and let it be, returning by a long detour to Goudet. 

Below Goudet, the Loire receives the waters of the 
Ourzie, up whose course is a lovely waterfall, the Cascade 
de la Baulme, and its basin enlarges into the beautiful 
valley of Solignac. Below Cussac, the village next to 
Goudet, an immense landslip which occurred in the 
eighteenth century interrupted the course of the river and 
formed, for the time being, a large lake. The river winds 
now at the base of Mont Malpas — near which are some 
very beautiful " paves des geants " — flows through the 
village of Coubon within sight of the castle of Bouzols, 
and round the foot of a lovely rocky hill, the Mont 
St. Maurice, to Brives. 

It had been my intention to continue following the 
course of the Loire down to Brives (Le Puy), but meeting 
in the village the gentleman who remembered Steven- 
son, I discussed the matter with him and was dissuaded. 



38 THE LOIRE 

He assured me there was nothing of interest, at all 
events between Goudet and Coubon, and added that, 
speaking as an old mountaineer, though he had done 
it once, he would not care to do it again. As my feet 
were torn and bleeding, and I had already had ex- 
perience of most varieties of rough country to be met 
with in the Cevennes, the last consideration was perhaps 
as strong as any. 

J^l On the following morning at an early hour I set off 
for Le Puy, very sorry to leave my kind friends at the 
Hotel Rivet, but not sorry to be returning to money 
and baths. In the village Square I found that the 
amusements of the day had already started. A 
solitary gipsy caravan, undersized and painted green 
— dragged apparently by a raw-boned horse that 
moped over some meagre tufts of grass — occupied 
the central position under the tree. The owner of the 
caravan (a man with a red face and sandy hair) and a 
dark woman, with powerful lungs, were airing their 
little disagreements, while, watching them, seated on 
the low stone wall which bounded the square on the 
side looking on to the river, sat in a long black line, 
the elite of Goudet. The gipsy woman with the lungs 
again and again expressed herself in forcible terms ; 
after each outburst the red-faced man beat her phleg- 
matically over the head with a thin, white, newly-peeled 
stick. The blows and screams resounded throughout 
the village. " Society," sitting on the wall, remarked 
" How shocking ! " at decent intervals, and continued 
looking on. In the bottom of their hearts they saw 
nothing unnatural in this method of taming a shrew ; it 
is quite possible that the shrew saw nothing unnatural 



LE PUY EN VELAY 39 

in it either ; while the frank publicity of the correction 
seemed to rob it of half its unpleasantness. Alas ! the 
advent of the policeman and the Parish Council have 
robbed village life, in the more civilised countries, of 
much that in old times made it picturesque. At the risk 
of seeming insincere, I must admit that I enjoyed the 
little scene enormously. It was eminently healthy ; 
it was conducted in the sight of all men, and no doubt 
the woman's beating did her good. Scolds, though 
tolerable in a mansion, are unpleasant everywhere, 
and in the confined space of a caravan . . . Beat on, 
untrammelled, brave gipsy — most admirable disciple of 
Nietzsche — and don't care a hang what the neighbours 
think ; there are many far meaner and less effective 
ways of punishing a shrew than giving her a healthy, 
bracing beating ! Stevenson, I discovered later, when 
1 came to search his works for references to Goudet, 
observed a tendency to "free" speech in the village, 
for in the suppressed chapter of his " Travels with 
a Donkey," which was published after his death in 
the " Pentland edition," he mentions its cheerful out- 
door abusiveness. " Of all the swearers," he writes, 
" that 1 ever heard, commend me to an old lady in 
Goudet, a village of the Loire. I was making a sketch, 
and her curse was not yet ended when 1 had finished 
it, and took my departure. It is true she had a right 
to be angry, for here was her son, a hulking fellow, 
visibly the worse for drink before the day was well 
begun. But it was strange to hear her unwearying 
flow of oaths and obscenities, endless, like a river, and 
now and then rising to a passionate shrillness, in the 
clear and silent air of the morning." He came down 



40 THE LOIRE 

into Goudet from St. Martin-de-Fugeres by the road 
up which I painfully toiled to leave it, and he describes 
the view I had of the village when I turned, like Lot's 
wife, to look back. 

It was on a Sunday, and Stevenson had been making 
a few characteristic remarks about the " Sabbath," 
and his sympathy with it. " In this pleasant humour 
I came down the hill to where Goudet stands in a 
green end of a valley, with Chateau Beaufort opposite 
upon a rocky steep, and the stream, as clear as 
crystal, lying in a deep pool between them. Above 
and below you may hear it wimpling over the stones, 
an amiable stripling of a river which it seems absurd 
to call the Loire. On all sides Goudet is shut in by 
mountains ; rocky footpaths, practicable at best for 
donkeys, join it to the outer world of France ; and 
the men and women drink and swear in their green 
corner, or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter 
from the threshold of their homes in an isolation, you 
would think, like that of Homer's Cyclops. But it is 
not so : the postman reaches Goudet with the letter- 
bag ; the aspiring youth of Goudet are within a day's 
walk of the railway at Le Puy ; and in the inn you may 
find an engraved portrait of the host's nephew, Regis 
Senac, ' professor of Fencing and Champion of the two 
Americas,' a distinction gained by him, along with the 
sum of five hundred dollars, at Tammany Hall, New 
York, on the 10th April, 1876." 

I climbed about half a mile up the steep road to St 
Martin-de-Fugeres, and paused to look back at the 
scene described above — to take a last look at my 
beloved Goudet, nestling under the hills, with the river 



LE PUY EN VELAY 



41 



running in front of it, between broad expanses of white, 
uncovered stones, silent witnesses of the yearly crues. 
There were the two ruined castles of Goudet and of 
Beaufort, facing one another on steep rocks between 
which the river flows, and further on, the white suspen- 
sion bridge. At the back and all round were the pre- 




An ox-cart in the Cevennes 

cipitous pine-clad slopes. It was a lovely picture. 
Just by Goudet the river makes two long, cold, deep 
pools, the water filtering from the one to the other 
through a broad expanse of stones. Afterwards it 
runs through a deep gorge, and gets so narrow that 
one could almost leap across it ; then flows between a 
broad uncovered stretch of sand, and so out of sight. 



42 THE LOIRE 

The road turned now away into the village of St. 
Martin-de-Fugeres, and from this time onwards, until 
I reached Coubon, I saw no more of my river. 

St. Martin is not a village of surpassing interest. 
It is perched on a high plateau above the narrow 
and romantic gorge which is the Loire valley, and 
it possesses an accessible public pump. Many persons 
might visit this village without discovering this fact ; 
to me, however, parched by the broiling sun and with- 
out a penny in my pocket, it had a special appeal. 
At ten o'clock in the morning, on the 27th of May, 
1911, the natives of St. Martin were regaled with the 
astonishing spectacle of a foreign young man kneeling 
down in front of the pump, with head bent on one side 
under the spout, clasping its waist with one arm, and 
with the other sending a stream of water over his 
sun-baked countenance and (occasionally) into his 
mouth. They came and stood round in numbers, 
with mouths agape, but respectful, as before one who 
was evidently saying his prayers to an unknown god. 
The water that trickled off my face ran delightfully 
down my back and all over me, under my clothes, 
and refreshed me as nothing else could have done. I 
set off with renewed vigour, after eating some bread 
and cheese from my coat pocket, along the now ex- 
cellent road to Chadron (which has a ruined castle), 
which I reached after crossing the Colanse, a torrent 
full of fishes, which joins the Loire a little below St. 
Martin. After leaving Chadron, I went on, uphill again, 
till I met some peasants, who urged me to take the 
short way to Coubon, by following the " Vieux Chemin," 
which leaves the main road just by an old stone cross 



LE PUY EN VELAY 43 

above Chadron. My experience of these " vieux 
chemins " should have taught me to be wary, but in 
my anxiety to get quickly to Le Puy I plunged down 
it light-heartedly, and was soon in agonies. I have 
never rejoined a main road with greater thankfulness 
than I did that white, dusty road above Coubon. Not 
only had my feet been cut and bruised, but I had had 
to carry a small boulder in each hand, most of the way, 

as a warning to sheep-dogs. Once bitten 

Coubon itself is an attractive, rather large village, 
dominated by the castle of Bouzols, which is situated 
on a magnificent rock, overlooking the valley, has 
been recently restored, and is now once again in- 
habited. At Coubon the road crosses the river by one 
of the handsome narrow suspension bridges which are a 
feature of the Loire. Its pillars were placarded, when I 
crossed it, with notices about the "Retraites Ouvrieres 
et Paysannes," and fierce declarations to the effect 
that begging was forbidden in Haute Loire. From 
Coubon to Le Puy, there are two roads, one through 
the village of Taulhac, frequented by motors, and 
dusty ; and the other following the course of the river 
down to Brives, where the electric tram completes 
the journey. 1 chose the latter, staggering, in my 
enthusiasm, over the rough stones by the river-side. 
The water, even here, covered only about one-third or 
one-quarter of the river-bed, but it required very little 
imagination to realise what a large flood would be 
poured down in winter from the hills. The stream 
wound under the base of the rocky hill which a peasant 
woman pointed out to me as the Mont St. Maurice, 
and on every side was a magnificent mountain pano- 



44 



THE LOIRE 



rama. About half - way towards Brives I noticed 
a large farmhouse, that looked to be of an almost 
immemorial antiquity. It was partly carved out of 
the living rock, and almost ruinous in places. In 
form it was a quadrangle, surrounding a farmyard 
littered with straw and dung, and at one end rose 
an ancient tower. The oxen teams were ploughing 
the broad meadows all round, as they might have 







,!" mif^m§';^^^^ :;•■":;..».., ■■ 

Old farm near Coubon 

been doing a thousand years ago. The curious, 
rather sinister building is one of the most interest- 
ing that I can recall in Haute Loire. Further on, 
past the farm, the river-bed widens out still more, 
leaving a great expanse of stones, then rushes down 
a slope into a deep reach formed by a barrage. On 
the left-hand side a deep channel has been made, 
to work a large new mill, and Brives can be seen in 
the distance. At Brives are two arches of an old bridge 
which was destroyed by one of the celebrated crues. 



LE PUY EN VELAY 



45 



and a good modern bridge which bears the tramway. 
Here are indefatigable laundresses beating their soapy 




The bridge below Brives 

washing-boards, and little flat punts, like boxes, con- 
trolled by long " natural " poles. The river is broad 
here, and banked up to make navigable reaches ; while 



46 THE LOIRE 

below the new bridge, on the right-hand side, I saw 
actually a rowing-boat. Save for these few hundred 
yards, one could not see where it was to be used ; for 
except just here the river was impossible even for a 
canoe. About a kilometre below Brives is a charming 
mediaeval stone bridge, under which the water runs 
swift and deep. It leads across to an old Carthusian 
monastery, and is so narrow that there is barely 
room for a cart and a foot-passenger to pass one 
another on it. Climbing up towards Le Puy from the 
old bridge, one saw from the highest point of the road 
an extraordinary panorama of hills and mountains, 
one rising behind the other, each peak clearly outlined 
and of an odd, individual shape suggesting that it 
had been modelled intentionally by the thumb of some 
giant artificer. It seemed impossible that Nature 
could have designed anything so "human." The nearer 
hills had all bright stretches of the greenest pastures 
and cultivated fields among the black rock patches, 
sometimes up to the very summit, and on all the lower 
slopes the red roofs of the houses were thrown into 
sharp contrast by the meadow land. 

I was more dead than alive when I got into Le Puy, 
exhausted for want of food and with a parched tongue, 
but I finished strong, up the long road leading to the post 
office. The subsequent joys of being shaved, of bath- 
ing, and of drinking deep draughts of iced beer I leave 
to the imagination of all walkers. Those were moments 
of bliss, and the joy of complete rest after violent 
effort has shed a glamour, for me, over Le Puy, which 
I have no doubt is undeserved. Mr. and Mrs. Pennell, 
■ — to the delight of the local Syndicate of Initiative, 



LE PUY EN VELAY 47 

who quote it on the front page of their handbook — 
described Le Puy as the " most picturesque place in 
the world," and wrote about it in the " Century Maga- 
zine," so that no doubt it has points which have escaped 
an untrained and less observant eye. The two sharp, 
rocky knolls that stand up, without warning, in the 
midst of it, are certainly surprising. But only one of 
them, the "dyke" de St. Michel d'Aiguilhe, gives a 
pleasant surprise. The larger of the two, the Rocher 
Corneille, which is in two stages, the second being a 
flat plateau of rock, has been utilised to give publicity 
to the foulest terra-cotta-coloured statue of the Virgin 
and Child — "Notre Dame de France" — it would be 
possible to imagine. It was erected, in 1860, with 
the bronze of 213 Russian cannons captured at Sebas- 
topol. This odious and ill-proportioned, patriotic labour 
haunts one all over Le Puy. You cannot lift up your 
eyes unto the hills without being made to lower them 
hastily, with groans. Some true patriot should be found 
to pay it a visit on August 15th, the day of the great 
yearly pilgrimage, with a small bomb in his pocket. 

The "Rocher d'Aiguilhe," however, is entirely charm- 
ing. You go through a gateway in a very humble quarter, 
the faubourg d'Aiguilhe — a commune, by the way, dis- 
tinct from Le Puy — and after making a donation to 
the guardian of the door, ascend to the little Romanesque 
Chapel at the top, by a winding staircase. The chapel, 
which has been restored, is said to have been built a.d. 
962. Its little western fa§ade is delightful, and con- 
sidered one of the most charming examples of Byzanto- 
Roman architecture in the Department. The doorway 
is richly carved, but the tower of the little church is dis- 



48 



THE LOIRE 



pleasing. It would be far more effective, certainly from 
below, if it had no tower, and that seems to have been 
a later addition. From the doorway you mount several 
steps to get into the church proper, which is bare save 
for an altar surmounted by an angel holding a banner, 
and flanked by two other angels with offertory boxes. 
All over the altar, the statues, and the banner, and over 







Rocher d'Aiguilhe, Le Puy 

every inch of wall, the names of innumerable French 
tourists — pious pilgrims, no doubt — have been scrawled. 
Outside there is a path leading round the church through 
the ruins of some older building, from which a superb 
view may be obtained. Through the stillness comes 
the constant splashing of the Borne, the little river 
that skirts the base of the rock, and runs through the 
town to join the Loire. And in the distance on two sides 
arc the green slopes of the hills, and the bright red roofs 



LE PUY EN VELAY 40 

of isolated herons ; while on the remaining sides lie the 
red-roofed town with its two open spots — the Place du 
Breuil and the Place Michelet — ^the Cathedral and 
the Rocher Corneille. Looking straight down the dizzy 
precipice there are blue irises and bright yellow wall- 
flowers growing in all the crevices of the rock, increasing 
the impression one has that the whole rock with its little 
church is a jewel of an exceptional beauty, a kind 
of collaboration between God (or Nature) and man, to 
produce a certain effect. 

Le Puy is a great centre of the cult of Our Lady, 
to whom, in addition to the lamentable statue which 
now forms the objective of the pilgrims, the beautiful 
Romanesque cathedral at the base of the Rocher 
Corneille, is dedicated. The Cathedral is reached by 
climbing up sixty steep steps — La Montee des Tables — 
one of which bears the celebrated inscription, in lettering 
of the twelfth century : 

" Ni caveas crimen, caveas contingere limen. 
Nam Regina poli vult sine sorde coli.'^ 

On the left are the interesting cloisters, built in the 
eleventh or twelfth century, of marble and many- 
coloured stone, with round arches and elaborately 
carved capitals. The interior of the Cathedral, its 
doorways and the curious buildings which surround it 
are full of interest. The high altar has a small vierge 
noire, the replica of a Pagan idol of great antiquity 
resembling a nigger doll, which was destroyed at the 
Revolution. The original doll was said to have been 
brought by Louis IX from the East, and had an Egyptian 
appearance. The superstition certainly brought great 
wealth to the church of Le Puy, which for nearly a 



50 THE LOIRE 

thousand years has been specially associated with the 
Madonna, and a place for pilgrimages. 

In one of the side chapels may be noticed a fresco 
unearthed by Prosper Merimee. This fresco of the 
" Liberal Arts " is a mural painting of the fifteenth 
century, representing Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric, and 
Music, by groups of persons. Each art is represented 
by a beautiful lady, symbolising the art itself, and by a 
worthy gentleman who has made his name renowned by 
the exercise of it. The fresco, which seems to indicate 
the presence of a vigorous mediaeval school of painting 
at Le Puy, has unfortunately been injured by the 
colour-wash, under which Merimee discovered it. 

Le Puy contains many quaint old houses and narrow, 
mediaeval streets. Among the buildings that should be 
noted are the old stone archway, leading out of the rue 
Parnasse into the narrow rue Philibert, some old houses — 
especially Number 51 — in the rue Pannessac, and the 
Escalier Boiteux near the Cathedral. At night when 
the Aiguilhe and Rocher Corneille are lit up, the appear- 
ance of the town is curious and beautiful. 

Everywhere throughout Le Puy the lace-making is 
going on incessantly — every able-bodied woman of the 
poorer classes throughout the district seems, indeed, 
to be engaged in it. It is a picturesque occupation, a 
handicraft which has almost the dignity of a fine art, 
and the women, old and young, who exercise it have 
many curious customs which have survived, like the 
ancient headdresses and costumes, the devastating spread 
of " education." 

The lace -makers have their own societies, which still 
gather in the summer outside the cottage doors, and in 



LE PUY EN VELAY 51 

winter in the kitchen of the head-woman. La Beate, 
whose official designation — for she is recognised and 
paid by the State — is "Dame de I'Instruction." Even 
the tiniest hamlet has one of these officials. Her 
house is surmounted by a distinguishing bell-cote and 
has two floors, the lower consisting of one large room, 
used as a school, chapel, and meeting-room. The 
children who work in the fields all the summer, 
attend school in the winter at the house of La Beate, 
who teaches the girls the use of the bobbins. In 
summer her house is used as a creche by the women 
working in the fields, who deposit their babies with her. 
In addition to these duties. La Beate nurses the sick, 
closes the eyes of the dead, and acts as general friend 
and counsellor to the neighbouring cottagers. 

The lace-making industry, so important to this 
district, was in the past frequently injured by unwise 
laws. In 1547, for instance, the Parliament of Toulouse 
promulgated a sumptuary law which forbade anyone 
save nobles to wear lace, for a curious reason, namely 
that it was impossible to obtain domestic servants in 
Le Velay because all the maids were engaged in lace- 
making. The edict caused great distress, until S. Francis 
Regis, a Jesuit who came into Le Velay on a preaching 
mission, realised its unwisdom, and hurrying to Toulouse 
obtained its repeal. His memory is in consequence 
still green throughout Le Velay, and his tomb at 
Lalouvesc (where he died December 31st, 1640) still 
receives streams of pilgrims. Haute Loire is now the 
most important lace-making centre in the world, doing 
a very large trade, particularly with America. 

The streets of Le Puy seem to be perpetually full of 



52 THE LOIRE 

beasts. Never was there a town with so frequent a 
cattle-market. The Place du Breuil and Place Michelet, 
the two open plains that stretch out from the long 
main street, are constantly filled with a tossing sea of 
horned heads ; and the lowing of oxen and the sound 
of blows and shouts, as the black-clothed farmers move 
about among the cattle, can be heard far off. It is 
impossible to walk down the streets without meeting 
one or more teams of yellow oxen, with mild, pathetic 
eyes and white muzzles, their heads yoked together by 
a heavy block of wood, being driven along by their 
owners. Le Puy is essentially a market -town for a rude 
mountain people, the centre of an industry peculiar to 
places where all means of communication used, until 
recently, to be closed for months at a time, and, like 
nearly all the villages and smaller towns in the district, 
it is black, squalid, and unprepossessing. To be sure, on 
a bright sunny day, it is pleasant enough. There are 
hotels, a large new barracks, and a clean-looking liqueur 
factory. But let the day be overcast, and a bleak wind 
whistle down the long street and across the Place du 
Breuil and the Place Michelet, and one sees the town 
in a truer light. It is essentially bleak, accustomed to 
sheltering from the cold behind thick stone walls, 
without any of the smiling luxuriance of more favoured 
parts. Its beauty is the beauty of the storm, of Nature 
at her most magnificent and awe-inspiring. The mere 
work of man has been dwarfed and discouraged. No, 
in spite of Mr. and Mrs. Pennell, and many others, I must 
confess I found Le Puy antipathetic. Here, however, I 
ought to quote some contrary opinions. Says Maurice 
Barres : " Le Puy est a mon gout, la ville la plus s6dui- 



LE PUY EN VELAY 



53 



sante, la plus etrange, la plus rare de France." I can 
understand the use of the last two adjectives, but not 




Market scene, Le Puy, Haute Loire 

the first. Georges Sand has written in one of her novels 
(" Le Marquis de Villemer ") a tribute to the district, as 



54 THE LOIRE 

admirable as it is true, though it cannot be taken as an 
encomium of the actual town of Le Puy : 

" Rien, mon ami, ne peut te donner I'idee de la beaute 
pittoresque de ce bassin du Puy ; et je ne connais point de 
site, dont le caractere soit plus difficile a decrire. Ce n'est 
pas la Suisse, c'est moins terrible, ce n'est pas I'ltalie, 
c'est plus beau ; c'est la France centrale avec tous ses 
vesuves eteints, et revetus d'une splendide vegetation : 
ce n'est pourtant ni I'Auvergne, ni le Limousin que tu 
connais. Ici, tout est cime et ravin, et la culture ne peut 
s'emparer que de profondeurs resserrees et de versants 
rapides. Elle s'en empare, elle se glisse partout, jetant 
ses frais tapis de verdure, de cereales et de legumineuses 
avides de la cendre fertilisee des volcans jusque dans 
les interstices des coulees de lave qui la rayent dans tous 
les sens. A chaque detour anguleux de ces coulees, on 
entre dans un desordre nouveau qui semble aussi 
infranchissable que celui que Ton quitte ; mais quand 
des bords eleves de cette enceinte tourmentee, on peut 
I'embrasser d'un coup d'oeil, on y retrouve les vastes 
proportions et les suaves harmonies, qui font qu'un 
tableau est admirable, et que I'imagination n'y peut 
rien a j outer." 

Young, with his usual accurate eye for landscape, 
thus corroborates Georges Sand : " Nature in the 
production of this country, such as we see it at present, 
must have proceeded by means not common elsewhere. 
It is in all its forms tempestuous, as the billowy ocean. 
Mountain rises beyond mountain, with endless variety ; 
not dark and dreary, like those of equal height in other 
countries, but spread with cultivation (feeble indeed) 
to the very tops. Some vales sunk away among them, 



LE PUY EN VELAY 55 

of beautiful verdure, please the eye. Towards Le Puy 
the scenery is still more striking from the addition of 
some of the most singular rocks anywhere to be seen." 
He adds later that " the whole country is volcanic : 
the very meadows are on lava ; everything, in a word, 
is either the product of fire, or has been disturbed or 
tossed about by it." 

These are both excellent as attempts to describe 
natural beauties, which are astounding, haunting, 
delightful, but neither says anything to contradict the 
suggestion that the town of Le Puy is in itself odious. 
Frankly, after I had luxuriated in the barber's shop, 
drunk a good deal of beer, and forwarded my postal 
order to M. Bonhomme, together with an epistle of 
thanks (in the oddest of dog French, which must have 
caused surprise in native bosoms), I was glad to get 
away. 

Le Puy is not greatly blessed — it is really one of its 
advantages — in the matter of railways. To get to it 
from Paris, the best way is undoubtedly to take the 
nine o'clock express (when it is running) from the Gare 
de Lyons, which reaches Lyons at 3.19 p.m. ; and then 
to proceed, by a cross-country journey, to St. Etienne, 
and from St. Etienne to Le Puy, leaving the former 
place at 6.22 p.m. and arriving at Le Puy somewhere 
about ten o'clock at night. It is the only way of get- 
ting to Le Puy in one day. 

The trains out of the town are either inconveniently 
early or inconveniently late, and as the country is 
delightful, there can be no better means of progression 
than on foot. 

A commercial traveller, who poured out my wine for 



56 THE LOIRE 

me one night at dinner^ — a little dark man in a shiny, 
black tail-coat, with a round stomach, inflated like a 
football, and a way of putting his hat on the back of his 
head and sticking his thumbs into the armholes of his 
waistcoat, reminiscent of Mr. Gus Elen — besought me 
to stop at Vorey. He recommended the hotel of the 
widow Maleysson, where he assured me I should be 
comfortable. We had a glass of Verveine together after- 
wards — it is a kind of local Benedictine, white, fiery, but 
not unpleasant — and he insisted that this was excellent 
for the stomach, and " pas cher, pas cher," meaning 
that he did not mind if he did. I remembered noticing 
that the Loire was classed as " flottable " from Vorey 
onwards, and as the place had a pleasant-sounding 
name and seemed a reasonable day's march from Le 
Puy, I decided to start for it at seven o'clock on the 
following morning. 



CHAPTER IV 

VOREY 

XT was a fine day, and I set off cheerfully down the 
-■- faubourg St. Jean, leaving on the right the road 
to Brives which crosses the Borne. I had not reached 
Chadrac, however, before it occurred to me to turn off 
to the left to visit the castle of Polignac, which is 
situated on a magnificent flat-topped rock with precipi- 
tous sides. It is the most important mediaeval fortress 
in the district. The ruins consist of a high square, 
machicolated tower — the donjon — from the top of 
which is a magnificent view — ^and the remains of 
numerous other constructions of different epochs. 
These comprise the fortress proper with its system of 
fortifications, two chapels, the lodgings of the officers 
of the garrison, together with the stables for their horses, 
the dwelling-house and its surroundings, bakeries, 
cellars, outhouses, forges, etc. The rocky plateau on 
which these buildings stand is bounded by a crenel- 
lated wall, fortified by sallyports and towers, and the 
remains of iron gates are also traceable. Among the 
mediaeval ruins may also be noted what are incontest- 
ably the remains of a Gallo-Roman " oppidum," among 
which some interesting inscriptions and sculptured 
fragments have been found. There are subterranean 
passages and rooms in the neighbourhood of the 

57 



58 THE LOIRE 

" oppidum," and a vast oubliette over two hun- 
dred feet deep, known as le puits or Vabime, which 
encloses an abundant spring. The castle, unlike many 
ruins, which are more interesting from a distance than 
close to, is well worth visiting, and in the little village 
nestling at its foot is a well-preserved and interesting 
Romanesque church. The building is still the property 
of the Polignac family, who also own the restored castle 
of Lavoute -Polignac further on. Young, when he visited 
these parts, was greatly interested in Polignac, and 
describes it as follows : " The castle of Polignac, from 
which the duke takes his title, is built on a bold and 
enormous (rock), it is almost of a cubical form, and 
towers perpendicularly above the town which surrounds 
it at its foot. The family of Polignac claim an origin of 
great antiquity ; they have pretensions that go back — I 
forget whether to Hector or Achilles — but I have never 
found anyone in conversation inclined to allow them 
more than being in the first class of French families, 
which they undoubtedly are. Perhaps there is nowhere 
to be met with a castle more formed to give a local 
pride of family than this of Polignac ; the man hardly 
exists that would not feel a certain vanity at having 
given his own name from remote antiquity to so 
singular and so commanding a rock ; but, if with the 
name, it belonged to me, I would scarcely sell it for a 
province. The building is of such antiquity, and the 
situation so romantic, that all the feudal ages pass in 
review in one's imagination, by a sort of magic influence ; 
you recognise it for the residence of a lordly baron, 
who, in an age more distant and more respectable, 
though, perhaps, equally barbarous, was the patriot 



VOREY 



59 



defender of his country, against the invasion and 
tyranny of Rome." 

Returning towards the Loire, the road crosses the 
river by the suspension bridge near Chadrac. On the 
right it passes the rock-pierced village of Monteil, and 
about half a mile further on, the village of Durianne, 
also on the right. After passing the mill on the Loire 




Near Le Puy 



the road becomes carved out of the rock, en corniche. It 
now, in a little while, crosses the Sumene just before its 
confluence with the Loire, leaving the village of Peyre- 
deyre on the right. The Loire, just before Peyredeyre, 
makes a broad, tranquil lake surrounded by steep crags, 
and, farther on, with the road by its side, it enetrs the 
celebrated " Portes " de Peyredeyre, and becomes en- 
cased in a narrow and very deep gorge. After about an 



60 THE LOIRE 

hour's steady walking through a country of mountain and 
rock, sometimes bare and sometimes covered with pines 
or oaks, I came to the Chateau of Lavoute, belonging to 
the Polignac family. It stands at the end of a volcanic 
rock rising precipitously out of the river. The castle, 
which is long and rather narrow, dates chiefly from the 
fifteenth century, but it is for the most part a recon- 
struction, as we should say, though the French prefer 
to call it "restoration." The two flanking towers with 
their pointed roofs are doubtless much as they origin- 
ally appeared, but they are, nevertheless, almost entirely 
new constructions. But if the building is not specially 
attractive, the site is unequalled. All round are wooded 
hills and bare crags : nowhere is the valley of the 
Loire more romantic and beautiful. At the village of 
Lavoute (where there is a tolerable inn) the road crosses 
the river by a sixteenth-century stone bridge, after 
leaving on the right the road to Yssingeaux. The 
six miles from here to Vorey are picturesque, and 
the road keeps close to the river all the way. As it 
had a fairly good smooth surface, I covered the ground 
quickly. 

On my way I remember passing a field quite blue 
with violets. Violets were not so common down here 
as in the highlands of Les Estables and Ste Eulalie, 
nor quite so good, though these were much larger than 
any we are accustomed to see in England. I picked 
myself a buttonhole of them, but picked too many, 
and as I could not bear to throw away the beautiful 
little flowers, " maids of honour " to the Spring, I 
stopped and dug a grave with the help of my walking- 
stick, and gave them a burial as nearly worthy of them 



VOREY 61 

as I could contrive. The local fairies, if any happened 
to be on the spot, no doubt sang a requiem, but the 
unnecessary slaughter — as always with flowers — made 
me feel terribly guilty. 

I got to Vorey soon after three on a bright afternoon 
and searched for the widow Maleysson, I did not have 
very far to look, for her inn turned out to be on the 
outskirts of the village, on the left-hand side of the 
road, just before it crossed the Arzon — a small brook 
that here joins the Loire. 

The widow Maleysson was there just as my friend of 
the night before had indicated that she would be ; but 
he had wisely not attempted a description of the woman 
who rose up before me. Tall and with a poitrine bombee 
— ^very much so — she greeted me with a singularly 
mellifluous voice, and assured me I could have a room, 
of the most comfortable, for two francs. She took 
me upstairs to an elaborately-furnished apartment 
with two windows, an iron bedstead, an upholstered 
sofa and several engravings of goddesses at the bath 
or making love to swains — all calculated to make my 
slumbers and my dreams angelic. It was — ^there was 
no doubt about it — a most comfortable, clean room. 
I dismissed the widow, opened the windows, lighted a 
cigarette and went peacefully to bed. 

When I descended to the square, main room with the 
little tables in it, for my Pernod before dinner (this 
Pernod habit was a legacy from Goudet and the hospi- 
tality of M. Bonhomme), I was encountered by the 
expansive " commercial " of the night before, who had 
recommended me to Madame Veuve Maleysson. We 
greeted one another as old comrades, and drawing the 



62 THE LOIRE 

widow into our charmed circle, indulged in intimacies, 
some of which were altogether beyond my knowledge of 
French. 

We dined in a back room whose windows looked out 
on to the Arzon, which talked away to itself in the 
distance, carrying on, like all small rivers, its unceasing 
soliloquy. The Arzon always reminded me of a young 
married woman adding up her accounts on the way 
from market, " Two tums two's four and carry ought, 
ought tums ought's ought," and so on. We sat at a 
round table — M. Reynard (the commis-voyageur), myself, 
and a tall, broad-shouldered, brown-eyed man in a kind 
of brown Norfolk jacket of curious cut, who M. Reynard 
informed me was a local fonctionnaire. The fonction- 
naire was very amiable, for all the world like a nice 
type of provincial Englishman, given to sport. When 
the maid, a young girl with a twinkling eye, bright 
cheeks, and rather straggling hair, came in and planked 
the soup-pot down on the stand in the middle of the 
table, both the fonctionnaire and M. Reynard threw 
crusts of bread at her. This was evidently a recognised 
custom, like the tiny embraces which she administered 
to the company when she brought the ecrevisses. These 
dainties from the river, small fresh-water lobsters, 
appreciated by those clever enough to know how to 
eat them, were apparently forbidden by law. The 
widow came in from the kitchen for a moment, with 
the solemn injunction to us that we were not to sneak 
to the inspectors who were in the neighbourhood. 
Not even the added charm of their being forbidden 
fruit, however, enabled me to get very much satisfac- 
tion out of their unbreakable " nippers." After dinner 



VOREY 68 

M. Reynard insisted upon going for a little walk with 
me to aid his digestion, as he said. Fixing his thumbs in 
the corners of his waistcoat, with his bowler on the back 
of his head, and his little short black tail-coat hanging 
down very straight behind, he presented a distinctly 
odd appearance. The " walk " he had in view was not 
a very serious one, its object being a long, low, ill-lighted 
cafe beyond the station, containing two small-sized, 
musty billiard tables, with balls the size of cricket balls, 
and cues like punt poles. The excitement of this 
establishment lay in the fact that the proprietor's 
brother-in-law, who was a Protestant missionary to 
America and spoke " perfect English," was home on a 
holiday. The proprietor, who was in his shirt-sleeves 
and had not shaved, was in appearance not unlike my 
friend of Goudet, so that I liked him at once. There 
was a touch of pensiveness in him : he sat contemplat- 
ing the night through the open door, with melancholy 
eyes, occasionally throwing a nod to us or a word to 
the two old peasants in blue trousers, with dark eyes 
and fierce white moustaches, who were poking the balls 
about on the billiard tables with their long battering- 
rams. M. Reynard inquired for the brother-in-law, 
and the patron rose to look for him. I sat in quite a 
little tremor of excitement (for I had not heard a word 
of English for several weeks) until the Protestant mis- 
sionary appeared. The search took some minutes, but 
when he did appear, it was like a sudden sea breeze or 
the opening of a window. He had to bend down to get 
through the door, so tall was he, and came towards me 
with outstretched hand, and open, smiling face. It 
was a brown face with gleaming white teeth, but 



64 THE LOIRE 

extraordinarily candid and good and direct. His 
goodness shone out all over him, turning everything 
else, including M. Reynard and the fuggy cafe, to mud 
by contrast. His dress was as clean and handsome and 
healthy as the man. He looked like an English curate 
with his black clothes, clean linen and white dog collar, 
and that kind of floppy felt hat which, to experts in 
clerical attire, is said to indicate " Mod. High. E.P. 
Lights." It was only in the silk garment underneath 
his coat that he exhibited peculiarity, for it was em- 
broidered in black silk with some beautiful flower that 
grew up his breast. It was a most intriguing garment, 
and like that apocryphal Colonel who, on his death-bed, 
called to the clergyman and uttered with his last gasp, 
" Tell me, quick, for God's sake, how you get into your 
waistcoat," I longed to make inquiries as to how on 
earth he put it on. Although he had been in " New 
Orleens " for nine years, his knowledge of English was 
hardly what his relatives imagined. When for instance I 
mentioned that I thought Vorey was very pretty, and that 
I would like some views of it, he remarked persuasively, 
" But why do you not buy some postal carts at the 
Tobacco ? " He asked me my name, age, place of 
residence and destination in the sweetest way, not at all 
like the Abbe in the auto going to Le Monastier, and 
seemed really interested in my replies. He was so very 
good, in short, that he quite made me wish to be good 
too, and when he had to go I found the caf6 intolerable, 
and roused M. Reynard for a further walk. M. Reynard, 
however, had not had sufficient Verveines to enable him 
to digest his dinner ; he would not walk very far under 
the stars, and soon we found ourselves back again at 



vouey 6^ 

the Hotel des Voyageurs. Rashly I offered him a drink, 
not having yet realised that instinct for commissions 
which lies deep in every bagman's heart. Nothing 
could give him greater pleasure : it was an occasion for 
sealing our friendship. He called the widow and 
ordered a bottle of Sauterne — ^the costliest wine that 
she provided — with a comical series of winks and 
glances. We repaired to the rather stuffy salle-a- 
manger, from which the dinner things had been cleared, 
and as the thought of tippling with the undiluted 
Reynard was displeasing, I besought the widow to join 
us. This in her full-throated amiable way she con- 
sented to do, and she brought with her an atmosphere 
of the world that was refreshing. Not a very exalted 
world perhaps, but one in which your best manners — 
such as they were — were brought out, your small-talk, 
your conversation, exhibited as well as you knew how. 
We raised our glasses with a flourish to our lips, we 
bowed to one another, we gave voice to amiable senti- 
ments, we appreciated the wine thoughtfully, rolled it 
on the tongue and pronounced upon its quality, its 
smoothness, its bouquet. We sat on wooden chairs at 
the round table, in the middle of which stood an elaborate 
metal lamp that smelt. The table was covered with a 
shiny brown oilcloth that had worn bare in places. 
The lamplight threw all but the table and our three 
white faces into curious shadow : the top of the room 
was shadowy, but through the open window was a 
framed square of star-deepened blue, across which heavy 
moths occasionally lumbered. Outside, in the stone 
corridor leading to the kitchen, we could hear one of the 
young men from the cafe pursuing Marthe, and kissing 



ee THE LOIRE 

her with resounding kisses. " C'est son amoureux ? " 
questioned M. Reynard. It was getting late when the 
widow turned to me and asked irrelevantly whether it 
were true that no English women were amorous, that 
they were cold and difficult ? M. Reynard at this 
turned his eyes up like the typical French lover in the 
sentimental picture postcard, and ogled the huge 
widow with her embonpoint and parchment countenance, 
ogled her with a ludicrously-affected leer. The widow 
suddenly seemed to grow vaster and vaster, myself 
smaller and smaller, and making a desperately clumsy 
speech to the effect that though English women were 
not lacking in tender feelings, yet the charm of French 
women was greatly appreciated by my countrymen, I 
bowed hastily, wished her and M. Reynard a good 
night, and fled upstairs. 

The following day I devoted to an exploration of 
Vorey ; not a very harassing task. The little town 
contains only about two thousand inhabitants. It 
boasts a little place, where the mairie faces the prin- 
cipal cafe, a shady street well planted with trees, a 
bright, brand-new telegraph office and post office, a 
cemetery, and a modern Romanesque church. Here 
every 16th of June is celebrated the " Messe de la 
Lepreuse," to which flock the inhabitants of the neigh- 
bouring hamlets of Vertaure and Eyravazet. This is 
an interesting tribute to the immense " catholicity " 
of the Catholic faith, for a more — to some minds — 
shocking example of pagan superstition than the 
incident which occasioned it, it would be hard to 
imagine. The story goes that in a remote, undated 
age a poor leper woman came a-begging for food to 






The Loire near Vorey, 



VOREY 67 

the tiny hamlet of Eyravazet, and was refused even 
so much as a crust of bread and a bowl of milk. At 
Vertaure she did no better, and, completely exhausted, 
she crept into an old disused shed and there 
died of hunger. The peasants, when her body was 
discovered, dug a deep pit and threw the corpse into it 
together with the debris of the hut, which they de- 
stroyed, and covered the whole with earth. The place, 
still remembered and pointed out, is called Las Cabannas. 
Afterwards, though the corn and vines of the two cruel 
hamlets were blighted and destroyed with hailstorms, 
the part near Las Cabannas was miraculously spared, 
and remained green and fruitful. The peasants of the 
two smitten places took their misfortunes to be a sign 
from Heaven, and vowed a mass in perpetuo for the soul 
of la Lepreuse. Her body was dug up and buried 
again at Vorey in consecrated earth, and the woman 
herself was locally canonised as Ste Juliette. 

The chief places of interest in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of Vorey are the ruins of the castles of Arzon, 
Saint - Pierre - Duchamp, and Roche - en - Regnier — the 
latter a magnificent ruin above the bank of the Loire 
near Chamali^res, but invisible from the river. And, 
nearer at hand, there is the Maison des Moines, an im- 
portant twelfth-century remnant of a priory of the 
order of Grandmont, in the valley of Viaye. 

The situation of Vorey is certainly its strongest 
point. It lies in a broad valley surrounded by wooded 
hills, frequently covered with dark pines and golden 
with broom in early summer. The river, which is 
joined here by the Arzon, a feeble enough stream at 
the Stiage, makes a series of violent twists, almost 



68 THE LOIRE 

doubling back on its tracks. Indeed, some miles below 
this spot, in prehistoric ages, it accomplished the 
extraordinary feat of carving itself a passage through 
the huge mass of laminated lava that barred its way, 
and must at one time have made of the basin of Vorey 
a huge lake. The great rocks of Miaune and Gerbison, 
the latter rising to a height of 1800 feet above the 
river, stand now as witnesses of the little stream's 
amazing determination. I say " little " perhaps too 
carelessly. It is little in summer, but in the season of 
floods it becomes a roaring, unrecognisable monster, 
for whom the perforation of a mountain would not be 
so difficult. 

From Vorey to Retournac, a distance of eight or 
nine miles, the Loire passes through a series of deep 
gorges. Although classed as flottable from Vorey, it 
is difficult to see how even the tiniest craft, having 
as small a draft as, say, an Accordian folding canoe, 
could get down it without occasionally grounding. 
Just below the town there are rapids where the river 
streams down a gentle slope through the loose stones 
which its waters barely cover. After this rapid, the 
first below Vorey, the river turns back sharply and a 
good reach of water follows. The hills here rise precipi- 
tously from the Loire, and are covered with trees, which 
grow wherever they can find a foothold. The slopes 
were all lit up when I saw them with the flower of the 
broom. They are less terrible hills these, less majestic 
than those at Le Puy, but high and steep enough to 
lend the river still the appearance of a torrent. 

Following the road, which is some distance above 
the river — ^the old lower road, about a kilometre out of 



VOREY 69 

Vorey, having been washed away in one of the spates — 
I came, after two miles, to a small hamlet lying between 
the road and the river, called Le Chambon. Here the 
road and the railway — which has been keeping it 
company — dive through tunnels in the living rock. 
The road turns abruptly and crosses a very handsome 
bridge, under which are three large rocks in the channel, 
and proceeds thence through a lovely country between 
high wooded hills covered with broom, past a ferry and 
an old mill, to the interesting village of Chamalieres, 
at the foot of Mt. Gerbison, and facing Mt. Miaune, 
some five miles from Vorey. 

Chamalieres contains one of the most interesting 
churches in Haute Loire. It has recently been restored, 
and is classed as a " monument historique." Its 
most noticeable feature is an arcaded clerestory, 
in which are, on each side, three windows, and 
between each of them two blind arches. The tower 
has been reconstructed, and is now in two stories, 
with four windows on each side on the first story and 
two on the second. The fabric, which dates from the 
twelfth century, is a remnant of an ancient priory, 
and contains the remains of frescoes, a Romanesque 
benitier, and tombs and altars of the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries. 

A certain amount of the country round Chamalieres 
is given over to the cultivation of vines, and stone is 
also quarried in the surrounding hills. The river, 
after a long stickle above the village, runs green and 
deep in front of it, and there are a number of punts 
in use just here. The high mountains on both sides 
become sometimes craggy at the top, and the ruins of 



70 THE LOIRE 

a castle on a hill dominated by Mt. Miaune, whose 
interest is purely spectacular, lend the scene a touch 
of the grandiose. Just below Chamalieres, the stream 
opens out again, making a wide and shallow reach, 
and as I passed in the evening light, I saw a boy paddling 
quietly in the middle of it, his dark form outlined 
against the yellow twilit sky. The Loire, as many of 
its singers have pointed out, " sleeps " whenever it 
gets the chance. Like human beings whose tempers, 
when roused, are similarly ungovernable, nothing 
could be more angelic than its appearance in peaceful 
moments. 

Beyond Chamalieres the river enters the valley of 
Retournac. Just before this little town, the next station 
on the line and a large parish containing nearly four 
thousand souls, is a long deep reach formed artificially 
by a barrage ; as smooth and placid and boatable as the 
upper Cherwell at Oxford. At Retournac I noticed the 
slopes of the hills were being thinned of their trees and 
the trunks lopped and sent sliding down the hillside in 
a kind of shoot or groove, just as I have seen them 
sent down in the Black Forest. The church, though 
somewhat overshadowed by that of Chamalieres, is 
an interesting Romanesque building, restored in the 
fifteenth century and offering points of interest to the 
architectural expert. 

On one of the heights of the right bank of the Loire, 
about a mile and a quarter to the south-east, are the 
picturesque ruins of the castle of Mercuret ; and about 
two miles to the north-east, situated on a magnificent 
peak nearly three thousand feet high, is the interest- 
ing Chapelle de la Madeleine. From Retournac, the 



VOREY 71 

mountain views are wonderful, and afar in all directions 
the great humps of the Cevennes lift themselves to 
the sky. The railway here keeps closely to the river, 
and I continued my journey through the lovely summer 
evening in the carriage of a P.L.M. train, keeping the 
Loire in sight all the way, as it ran now like a line of 
silver under the dark shadow of the hills. The next 
town after Retournac is Beauzac, with between two 
and three thousand people, remarkable for its graceful 
one-arched suspension bridge. It boasts also an old 
castle, at one time occupied by the Sisters of St. Joseph, 
of which two gates and the ruins of the fortified en- 
closure remain ; and a Romanesque church built over a 
crypt. One of the many ruins that lend picturesqueness 
to those craggy precipices that are characteristic of the 
upper Loire is to be noticed here — the remains of the 
priory of Confolens, founded in a.d. 995. Below Beauzac 
the river for some way becomes extremely narrow, 
then opens out at a spot where there is a bathing pool, 
then sinks once more through a stickle, and enters the 
defile of Pont de Lignon. Pont de Lignon, the next 
station, is noticeable for its great stoneworks ; here 
the Loire is joined by the Lignon du Sud, the most 
important river in the department, after the Loire 
and the Allier. It has its rise in the commune of 
Chaudeyrolles, north of Mt. Mezenc. After Pont de 
Lignon, the narrow valley soon opens out into the wide, 
fertile plain of Bas-en-Basset, formed by the alluvium 
washed down by the Loire. At the top of it is the 
embouchure of the Ance du Nord. The station is in 
the middle of the plain, between the two towns of 
Bas and Monistrol-sur-Loire, of which the larger is 



72 



THE LOIRE 



Monistrol, with just over five thousand inhabitants. 
Bas has three thousand. Monistrol is a pretty town. 











W^W^-%1' 




At Pont de Lignon 

built on what is nearly an island, between two torrents 
which unite just below it and, taking the name of the 
Folletier, hurl themselves into the Loire. The town 



VOREY 73 

used at one time to belong to the bishops of Le Puy, 
and was in olden days their favourite place of residence. 
Its castle, which is perched on a hill dominating the 
place, was enlarged and restored by the two bishops 
Jehan de Bourbon and Armand de Bethune in the 
second half of the fifteenth century. It is flanked 
with towers at each angle, and has been partially 
destroyed by fire. From the castle is a fine view across 
the broad valley of the Loire to Bas, with the strange 
outlines of the chateau de Rochebaron in the distance. 
Monistrol contains numerous Gothic houses, the most 
interesting perhaps being the ancient convent with its 
carved doorway, and spiral staircase capped with a 
pointed roof. The church has a Romanesque cupola, 
and inside, slender Romanesque columns. There is a 
commendable hotel at Monistrol, the Hotel du Nord, 
presided over by the widow Masson, and the place is 
as good a centre for exploring the Velay as Le Puy. 
Indeed, if a prejudice in favour of a more gracious 
country-side may peep out, I preferred it to the bleakness 
of the higher slopes. From Monistrol to Bas is about 
four miles, mostly across the wide plain. At Bas the 
Loire forms its first considerable island, the wooded 
lie de la Garenne, which is about a mile in length. The 
town itself is agreeable, but contains little noticeably 
of interest, its great " lion " being the castle of Roche- 
baron, situated on a precipitous rock about a mile and 
a half to the north-west. This castle was built in the 
reign of Charles VII, and dismantled by that arch- 
dismantler Richelieu. It is a triangular-shaped donjon, 
whose ruined towers and walls present a curious, 
even surprising, outline, especially at night. At Bas 



74 



THE LOIRE 



there are some punts on the river, and it is tolerably 
navigable down to a barrage, just below the town, 
after which there is almost a waterfall, and the Loire 
narrows once more into the gorge of Aurec. Canoeing 
from Bas in a very light craft would be an adven- 
turous feat, only possible with constant portages 
of the boat, which of necessity would have to be the 




Castle of Rochebaron, near Bas 

lightest made. I noticed a canoe tied up just above 
the rapids before Aurec, and at Aurec there were again 
a number of punts, though the rapids here are dan- 
gerous, with rocks sticking up in the middle of the 
stream. 

Aurec is a pleasant town, with nearly three thousand 
inhabitants, nestling among vine-clad hills, and con- 
taining the ruined tower of a thirteenth-century castle, 
and a fine modern house, the Tour-des-Sauvages. The 



VOREY 75 

canoeing between Aurec and Le Pertuiset during 
the summer months is quite possible, and the scenery 
— steep rocks, and wooded hills bright with broom, 
and green pastures — is particularly fine. Between 
these two points the river is joined by the Sumene, 
just before it crosses the border into the department 
of the Loire, and flows round the base of the mountain 
of St. Paul-en-Cornillon. On the slopes of this hill 
is a remarkably-situated village of the same name, 
containing an interesting twelfth-century church, an 
ancient convent chapel, and, on the rocks which crown 
the hill above the village, the remains of the castle of 
Cornillon. This splendid fortress, magnificent even in 
its decay, on a site at once the " most severe and the 
most gracious " in Le Forez, was formerly one of the 
strongest fortified places in the district. Its site is 
remarkably picturesque, even for such a picturesque 
country-side. The parish church of the village is inside 
the first line of fortifications. The Loire, while flowing 
round the base of St. Paul-en-Cornillon, enters the 
department of the Loire, and reaches its first village in 
that department, the small hamlet of Le Pertuiset. 

This village is frequented by a few visitors from St. 
Etienne, and is a charming place in which to spend a 
summer holiday, with excellent bathing and fishing. 
Just above here I saw for the first time since Brives — 
where the boat could not have been used for more than 
a hundred yards — a boat with oars, of the ordinary river 
type. Below Le Pertuiset, the railway leaves the Loire, 
after having been its inseparable companion from Le 
Puy along a series of mountainous gorges of unsur- 
passed loveliness, leaves it for the Lancashire-like 



76 THE LOIRE 

gloom of St. Etienne. On emerging from the depart- 
ment of Haute Loire the river has accompHshed just 
over a hundred miles of its course, though so constant 
have been its windings that the distance from its source 
by the direct route is under forty miles. 



CHAPTER V 

IN THE FOREZ 

FOR travellers who have to depend on the railway- 
there is no avoiding St. Etienne. In theory, it 
is possible to get out at St. Just and wait, but none of 
the natives are bold enough to do this. St. Etienne is 
a foul, all-attracting monster which sucks you in for an 
hour or two, only to vomit you forth in some new 
direction. All the way up the line from Firminy, 
through Le Chambon-Feugerolles and La Ricamarie 
to St. Etienne, one is in a coal country, black and 
terrifying. It has, of course, its interesting and attrac- 
tive side — life is a fierce thing there, labour is intelligent 
and discontented, passions are hot — but it is not an 
interest or attraction that a traveller down the valley 
of the Loire is likely to be in a mood to enjoy. It is a 
great modern town of about 150,000 inhabitants, in the 
midst of what, before its growth, was mountain country 
as lovely as the Yorkshire dales. Its tramways are a 
snare. They take you willingly enough away from the 
station, but bring you most reluctantly back. If you 
ask the conductor of a tram in the middle of the town if 
his machine goes " to the station," he will be sure to 
reply " Yes." You get in and are landed at another 
station about two miles from the one at which your 
train is waiting. I have no pleasant memories of St. 

V 



78 THE LOIRE 

Etienne ; in spite of its size it has no magnificence. Its 
town hall is pretentious, but unimposing : its central 
square, monuments, and public buildings are mean and 
unworthy. Few towns in France of a quarter its size 
are so lacking in any expression of civic pride. However, 
to St. Etienne you must go first, if you want to get 
away from it. 

Almost immediately on its entrance into the depart- 
ment of the Loire, the river flows into the deep and 
intricate gorges of St. Victor, one of the most picturesque 
parts of its course, emerging from them only at 
St. Rambert. St. Rambert is an interesting old town 
with a priory church partly dating from the tenth 
century, remarkable for two square towers, one of 
which — ^used as a porch — has a roughly carved frieze 
of the eleventh century. The town also boasts some 
remains of its fifteenth-century ramparts, and numerous 
old houses. 

Opposite St. Rambert, on the right bank of the river, 
is the slightly smaller town of St. Just-sur-Loire, which 
has the remains of a fifteenth-century bridge, the 
interesting Chateau de la Baralliere, and on a rock, 
dominating the right bank of the river, the picturesque 
ruins of the feudal fortress of Grangent. At this point 
the Loire flows into the wide plaine du Forez, an un- 
healthy, humid, misty expanse — in ancient times a 
great lake, and still containing numerous shallow 
ponds. The whole district in the summer is far from 
healthy, and after the brisk, bright air of the Cevennes 
it makes the unhappy traveller feel that he has been 
enveloped in a warm and damp blanket. The plain 
stretches, on the west, to the base of the mountains of 



IN THE FOREZ 79 

Le Forez, and on the east to the foot of the mountains of 
the Lyonnais. It is hard to realise here, so muggy and 
unhke the Rhone valley is the climate, that the Rhone 
is barely thirty miles away, the great city of Lyons 
less than fifty. Officially, the river became navigable 
at the hamlet of La Noirie in the gorges of St. Victor, 
and no doubt in certain seasons of the year two skilled 
canoers could have a very good time slipping down 
stream in a light boat. It is not a thing that I have heard 
of anyone doing, which is not unnatural considering the 
climate and the comparative lack of interest in the 
river's course between, say, St. Rambert and Balbigny. 

After entering the plain, the river passes Andrezieux, 
a fairly large village with nothing in particular to 
recommend it and some connection with the coal trade. 
Then the tall shell of the feudal castle of Montrond on 
the left bank is passed, and we come to Feurs — the 
Forum Segusiavorum of the Romans — from which the 
Forez derives its name. 

The widow of Vorey had strongly recommended 
Feurs ; guide-books described it as an " antique ville " ; 
it announced itself with a certain reasonable assurance 
on the map ; it was in the midst of a country that I had 
never heard of anyone visiting ; and it was not a place 
I had read about in a fat book with illustrations ! 
As the train ran on through the dull, dead, blue-green 
landscape that faded in the distance to a misty blur — 
so different from the freshness of the hill country — I 
grew quite pleasantly excited. I built all sorts of hopes 
on Feurs ; and after a while I arrived. 

The station faced down the usual boulevard — broad, 
new, and lined with trees planted by the contractor. 



so 



THE LOIRE 



It continued in a straight line : I with it. Soon we 
should come to the " antique ville." After half a mile 
something, indeed, happened, for this straight road 
was crossed at right angles by another road — ^the Allee 
de Bigny — equally straight and broad, but certainly 
more pleasing. You could see in both directions how, 
as soon as it left the town, it ran into a positive green 




At Feurs 

tunnel of trees. Such a deeply shaded route nationale I 
cannot recall having noticed anywhere else in France ; 
it was delicious, but — in either direction — the trees were 
a long half-mile away. 

It was Sunday. I had almost forgotten it till I 
examined the two cafes that faced one another in the 
broad, deserted place, where the roads crossed. They 
were filled with black-coated men lugubriously drinking 
Belgian bottled beer. Such Sabbath stolidity I have 



IN THE FOREZ 81 

seldom seen even in the dullest English provincial town. 
The muggy atmosphere seemed, through its effect of 
depression, to have left its mark on the type in these 
parts. Perhaps I ought to say that it left its mark on 
the men, for against Feurs I see I have mentioned in my 
notebook " buxom flappers." Indeed, the fat girls and 
the fat pigeons were the only features of interest in this 
singularly dull town. The girls regarded the stranger 
with a kind of haughty curiosity (an improvement on 
mere indifference), making mental notes of his funny 
face and his odd clothes, and sometimes giggling, when 
two of them met and were able to exchange ideas. They 
seemed all to be about sixteen years of age. Perhaps 
they are an institution, the fat girls of Feurs. The 
theory gains some support from the fact that in a 
small, dark Buvette in a back street — the only un- 
respectable spot in the dismal little town — I heard a 
gramophone grinding out the verses of a ballad, which 
celebrated their charms at endless length. Probably 
the song originated at the Caveau Stephanois, at St. 
Etienne ; it is bad enough for anything, and has 
clearly no folk-song flavour. I give a verse as nearly 
as I can remember it : 

" Lougs cils, fines tresses, 

Bouche de corail, 

Vrai nid a caresses 

Au bijou d'email, 

Buste qui revele 

Deux seins vigoureux — 

Viola de la belle 

Le croquis heureux. 
Andalouse, Parisienne, 
Florentine a I'oeil noir ou bleu, 
Je vous preffere encor, morbleu ! 
La gentille Forezienne.'' 



82 THE LOIRE 

Every man to his taste, of course ; personally, on that 
lamentable Sunday afternoon, I felt I would have pre- 
ferred an Andalouse — " au sein bruni " — to lend a little 
liveliness to the proceedings ; or even a Florentine 
" a I'oeil noir ! " After my encounter with the gentilles 
Foreziennes I remembered that it was the Loire that had 
brought one to this strange spot, and hurried down the 
straight, white road to look for it. It swirled its yellow 
waters under the narrow suspension bridge that bears the 
route nationale on its six-mile course to Boen, looking 
forlorn and desolate. Boen (in parenthesis) is an old 
town of the Forez, a little smaller than Feurs, well 
situated above the left bank of the Lignon forezien. 
(This stream joins the Loire below Feurs, and is famous 
for its trout fishing.) Boen boasts a fifteenth-century 
church of some interest, though restored in 1866, and a 
chateau built in 1786, but incorporating an hexagonal 
tower of earlier date. Some four miles to the east of 
the town lies the celebrated Chateau de la Batie, in 
the village of St. Etienne-le-Molard, the finest renais- 
sance building in the Forez. It was here, at the end 
of the sixteenth century, that Honore D'Urfe wrote 
his once celebrated novel " Astree." He was (inci- 
dentally) the ancestor of that improper rascal — author 
of " Pills to Purge Melancholy " — our own Tom Durfey. 
The chateau came into the possession of the D'Urfe 
family in 1331. The fine Court of Honour, which has a 
lovely double arcade on one side, is crossed by an arm 
of the Lignon, and from it an inclined road used to 
enable carriages to be driven up to the first story of 
the house. Unfortunately, the building was denuded 
at the end of the nineteenth century of its most beautiful 



IN THE FOREZ 83 

carved stonework ; but it remains a place of great 
beauty and charm, with a stimulating air of decay. 

To return to Feurs and the Loire. The river at Feurs 
cannot be called attractive. It is navigable for punts 
and canoes, is fairly wide, and runs over shifting sands, 
through a wide plain and between low, sandy, grass 
banks. Till below Balbigny and the little village of St. 
Georges-de-Baroille, a place of pilgrimage to Our Lady's 
Shrine, it has little interest, and traverses a monotonous, 
unhealthy district. 

It was with a sadly abashed heart that I retraced 
my steps up the street past the vulgar stucco " Palace " 
of some local magnate, back to the station. Feurs had 
played me false ; it was a town of sleep, suffocated by 
its own humidity. As though to show me the vanity of 
first impressions, however, a very ugly chapel came into 
view, which had been erected by Louis XVIII in 1824 
as an act of expiation for the immense number of 
victims who fell by the scaffold at Feurs during the 
Revolution. In the whole district of the Forez, indeed, 
the Revolution raged with extraordinary ferocity ; 
churches and manors were pillaged, and priests and 
nobles were murdered by hundreds. 

I thought I could hear a train snorting in the distance 
and continued more hurriedly along the boulevard, 
scattering a crowd of pigeons that had collected round 
me as I stood, contemplative, in the middle of the 
place. It was a train ; and waving my handkerchief to 
the kindest of the fat girls, I made for it, and quickly 
brought to an end my first (and I trust my last) visit to 
Feurs. The railway, like the main roads in this part, 
goes as straight as if it had been ruled, as far as Balbigny, 



84 THE LOIRE 

after which it enters a land of grassy hills, lasting as 
far as the plain of Roanne. 

From Balbigny to Roanne the Loire winds at the 
bottom of long and deep defiles, through ancient 
rocks (of Orthophyry and Porphyry) which close it 
in for nearly twenty miles. This is the river's last 
struggle with the rocks, and from Roanne to the sea 
it encounters nothing but plains and gentle sloping hills 
instead of mountains and caiions. While the Loire runs 
through these gorges it has no villages actually on its 
banks, and such places as occur near it are situated 
on the plateau at the back, behind one or other bank 
and out of sight of the river, unless they happen to 
look down at it from a great height. One of the most 
curious reaches is known as the Saut de Pinay, about 
four miles from the entrance of the gorges. At this point 
there used to be a boiling current. A great engineer- 
ing work was undertaken here two centuries ago, 
to form a reservoir. The two hills of crystalline rock 
that here narrow the bed of the Loire make the construc- 
tion of a bridge easy ; a fact which the Romans appre- 
ciated, and the piles of their bridge could still be seen 
at the beginning of the nineteenth century. To the 
natural barrage formed by the rock has been added an 
enormous digue de retenue, constructed by the engineer 
Mathieu in 1711 under the instructions of Louis XIV. 
This was the first effort made towards the regularisation 
of the dibit of the Loire, and was a complete success. 
The barrage, often repaired since, reaches the height of 
about fifty feet above the level of the water at its 
summer height, and during the big crues can reserve as 
much as 100,000 or 130,000 cubic metres of water. 



IN THE FOREZ 



85 



It seems a pity that similar undertakings- — or some still 
more ambitious scheme that would render the great 




The Saut de Pinay 

river navigable from this point — are not carried out all 
down its course. 

Some five miles before emerging from its last 



86 THE LOIRE 

gorges, the Loire passes in a narrow rapid beneath 
a gigantic crag, at the spot known as the Saut du 
Perron, just after flowing by the interesting little 
village of St. Maurice, dominated by the ruins of a 
castle built in the twelfth century, reconstructed in the 
fifteenth, and dismantled in the sixteenth. The piles 
of an ancient Roman bridge are to be seen in the river 
near St. Maurice — four masses of masonry which origin- 
ally bore the bridge between two projecting crags of 
rock. After the Saut du Perron the river forms a small 
island ; then, flowing beneath the bridge of Villerest, 
washes the vine-clad slopes of Vernay and widens out 
to flow past the town and through the plain of Roanne. 

Undaunted by my adventure at Feurs, I decided that 
Roanne, at last, would be my dream-city — untrodden 
of tourists, virgin, unknown. No English people 
surely had visited it or could possibly be found there ! 
I arrived by train on a heavy, airless afternoon, and 
was too hot and tired to search the town for " the 
perfect hotel," and took almost the first that came. 
It happened to be one which I had overheard two 
travellers in my compartment commending on the 
score of cleanliness and good cooking, and I remember 
it had a big porte-cochere, and the bureau was the 
comptoir in the big indoor cafe by its side. For it 
was from the cafe, entering by the side door, that I 
eventually disinterred the patron. He was a large man 
with a black, walrus moustache, seamed face, and 
perplexed eyes, and I asked him in my purest Parisian 
if he had a room of the kind I wanted. 

" Oh, yes, sir," he replied, to my great consternation, 
" certainly, sir, this way, sir ! " It had a wide verandah. 



IN THE FOREZ 



87 



the room, and was extremely comfortable. From it, 
I looked at the line of red sky over the undistinguished 
roofs, pressed down by a grey weight of cloud ; watched 




Near Roanne, St. Maurice 



the motionless leaves of the chestnut trees in half a 
hundred back gardens all standing waiting for the 
rain; observed a tall chimney lift its brick head into 
the unwilling sky ; and finally read on the side of a 



88 THE LOIRE 

house, in big white letters, the mystic words " Roanneries, 
Cotonneries." Then I went out to explore the town. 

It was my own fault, after all, that I was disappointed ; 
the guide-book (when it is a Baedeker) cannot lie, and 
I had had ample opportunities of discovering the 
important fact that the place is given over to the cotton 
trade. It is an increasing place situated at the head 
of the lateral canal which joins the Loire with the Loing 
(via Briare), and so with the Seine. The Loire itself, 
too, below the great barrage, a kilometre downstream 
from the bridge, becomes navigable for barges, though 
few, if any, at the present day are to be seen upon it. 
So, all things considered, at Roanne more than any- 
where one might have expected to cross the trail of the 
English bagman, to find him diffusing the speech of 
Manchester in all its purity. 

In Roanne itself, with the best intentions in the 
world, I could not discover any redeeming features. It 
apparently woke up one morning to find itself swollen ; 
awoke too late in the day properly to readjust its 
narrow streets of the little country town to the new 
conditions. The cross-roads (carrefour) in the middle 
of it are so narrow that, until the alterations at present 
(1911) in progress are completed, traffic is positively 
dangerous, especially as it includes electric tramcars. 
The road from the station, passing through the public 
gardens, leads straight through the town, past the new 
Hotel de Ville, and across a bridge to the suburb of 
Le Coteau. If you turn to the left at the carrefour, past 
a dull Swiss " indoor " cafe painted black and gold, you 
find yourself in a narrow, busy street, for all the world 
like a high street in an English country town, say, 



IN THE FOREZ 89 

Horsham. After passing an ugly stucco church, one 
comes eventually to an old, empty square, where is, in 
one corner, the restored tower, now used as a dwelling- 
house, of the old castle. It contains also some quaint 
mediaeval cottages, this little Place du Chateau, and 
makes a curious relic of that old " Roane " that was 
known (as I subsequently discovered) both to Evelyn 
and Young. Evelyn writes in 1644 : " 26 Sept. We 
arriv'd at Roan, where we quitted our guide and tooke 
post for Lions. Roan seem'd to me one of the pleasantest 
and most agreeable places imaginable for a retyred 
person : besides the situation on the Loire, there are 
excellent provisions, cheap and abundant." A word 
here as to the excellence, abundance, and cheapness of 
the food at my hotel may perhaps be taken as cor- 
roboration, after over two hundred and sixty years, of 
the truth of the last sentence. Young, writing nearly 
a century and a half after Evelyn, observes : " The 
buildings increase both in number and goodness on 
approaching the Seine (Loire) which we crossed at 
Roane ; it is here a good river, and is navigable many 
miles higher, and consequently at a vast distance from 
the sea. There are many flat-bottomed barges on it, 
of a considerable size." The decay of navigation on the 
Loire in modern times is much deplored by French 
topographers, greatest among whom in our own day, 
Ardouin-Dumazet, has an eloquent passage on the 
subject in one of his books : 

" L'dtat de ce beau fleuve de Loire est veritablement 
une honte," he writes, with fine eloquence. " Un tel 
cours d'eau, coupant en echarpe un pays comme la 
France, aurait du etre maintenu navigable a tout prix. 



90 THE LOIRE 

Les raisons tirees du peu de fixite du courant et des 
bancs obstruant le lit sont certainement tres graves, 
mais on ne pent s'empecher de constater que, jusqu'a 
nos jours, c'est-a-dire jusqu'a la construction des voies 
ferrees, la Loire fut un grand chemin. Toutes les vieilles 
vues panoramiques des villes de la Loire, Orleans, 
Blois, Tours, nous montrent le fleuve convert de 
bateaux. On serait en droit de se mefier, en se rappelant 
les formules du paysage selon Poussin et Claude Lorrain 
avec les vides remplis par des navires et des ' fabriques,' 
si nous n'avions a ce sujet les constatations d'un temoin 
impartial, Arthur Young. Le voyageur anglais ne 
manque pas de signaler les bancs de sable, le peu de 
fixite du lit, le triste aspect de la Loire en ete ; mais il 
la represente comme animee par la navigation." In 
1447 Rene of Anjou, the good king, when he thought 
it better to retire from Angers to Tarascon, made the 
journey by boat, " sailing in his galley," as far as 
Roanne, proceeding thence to Lyons, where he dropped 
down the Rhone to his castle. The journey took less 
than a month. 

To return to the old square, with its old houses and 
the preserved tower of the castle, it remains embedded 
in the new Roanne that has grown round it : a charm- 
ing mediaeval corner in a situation which provides a 
contrast almost painful. For Roanne as a whole I con- 
fess an " imperfect sympathy." The principal shops 
were in the street I have mentioned running through 
the midst of the town. Such book-shops ! — containing 
all the novels that one had not the slightest desire to 
read, with nothing emanating from the Mercure de 
France and a whole window full of Marcel Prevost I 



IN THE FOREZ 91 

Then, there were picture postcards of little girls in 
white, holding up their rosaries affectedly (in front of 
the camera) and turning up their eyes ; little boys in 
clean collars with satin bows on their right arms, putting 
a hand on their hearts and ogling a crucifix ; senti- 
mental young men with black upturned moustaches, 
and pink cheeks, who showed the whites of their eyes 
and stretched out inviting arms to simpering young 
women ! One might search the English counties in vain 
for a place aesthetically more dead. 

I had been a day and a night in Roanne before I 
examined the river which had brought me there. The 
Loire at Roanne (you reach it by going down the road 
from the station to the carrefour and proceeding 
straight down the long road towards Le Coteau) 
is swift and broad, split up every now and then 
by green islands and bordered with the usual line of 
laundry barges whence comes in the day-time the 
unceasing noise of clothes being splashed and spanked 
on the washing-boards. Walking downwards from the 
bridge, you come soon to a huge barrage across the 
river, followed by the mouth of the canal lateral a la 
Loire, which connects Roanne with Digoin. At the 
head of the canal is a curious dock for barges, an 
animated and picturesque sight, with the pleasant craft 
of barge-building in operation along one side. From 
Roanne the canal goes very straight, through the midst 
of its unbroken avenue of poplars, to Digoin. I have a 
great fondness for canals, and decided mentally, that if 
on a future occasion I were to repeat my pilgrimage 
with an Accordian canoe among my baggage, I would 
choose the canal in preference to the river. 



92 THE LOIRE 

The joys of the canal would not have been enough by 
themselves to keep me in Roanne. Nothing, I am sure 
of it, save the vagaries of the post office, could have done 
that. A hitch had occurred in my arrangements, my 
erratic movements had thrown things out of gear, and 
the letter that should have been waiting for me when I 
came, delayed two days. On its arrival I had to wait a 
further twenty-four hours before they would cash the 
order it contained : had to wait for a letter of advice ! 
However, at last I was released and had to consider my 
next stop. The commis-voyageurs in the hotel, who 
treated me with an almost overpowering consideration, 
reviling meanwhile the coldness of Lyons and other 
unamiable parts, urged upon me that I must go to 
Digoin ; such a thriving, flourishing town. I suggested 
that for my purposes towns a little worn, mildewed 
with association, towns of a slightly pensive cast of 
countenance, were preferable. I suggested Paray-le- 
Monial, between Roanne and Digoin : an ancient " holy " 
city, celebrated as a place of pilgrimage. But they 
would hear no good of Paray : besides, of what use was 
it to me since it was not, actually, on the Loire ? This 
last argument I found unanswerable ; and set off by 
train in the evening, through a country of woods and 
pastures between two lines of low, blue hills, to the 
prosperous town of Digoin. 



CHAPTER VI 

DIGOIN 

rriHE train went slowly through the humid and darken- 
-^ ing plain ; through the stations of Pouilly-sur-Char- 
lieu (with the grand twelfth-century ruins of the abbey 
of la Benissons-Dieu about three and a half miles to the 
west) ; through Iguerande, where the station-master has 
a voice of thunder — no one shall visit Iguerande with- 
out realising what he has done — and Marcigny, which 
lies three miles from its station and has 2533 inhabitants. 
Apparently this is all that can be said for Marcigny ; 
not even Joanne, who, in his dictionary, displays 
superterrestrial omniscience, can find anything but 
official details as to the post and telegraph service, the 
number of policemen, and so on, to record. I left 
the dim station in the gloaming, nevertheless, with a 
sinking of the heart. Marcigny on the Loire ! It lurks 
concealed in a green corner so exquisitely provincial 
that you feel you are in the very centre of the whole 
world, with no sea within a six months' journey, nothing 
but long, unending white roads, straight, unending 
rows of trees. In the middle of it all is just plain 
Marcigny, with 2533 inhabitants. Sometimes I wake 
up in the night with a great longing for that place. 
I am convinced that if I had but answered the de- 

93 



94 THE LOIRE 

spondent, almost wistful, invitation of the individual 
who walked half-heartedly up and down the train, 
swinging his lantern and exclaiming, " Marcigny ! 
Marcigny ! " in a tone of settled melancholy —so different 
from the boisterous, deceitful fellow of Iguerande — 
something rare and wonderful would have happened. 
I should have met something, someone. 1 should 
perhaps have been there still. But no ! I had not 
yet learned the great lesson for travellers : " Natives 
never know their own country, so never take their 
advice about it." Following blindly the counsel given 
me by the elite of Roanne, I persevered. 

The landscape was flat and undistinguished, with 
the river winding through, and churches with little 
pointed spires on every rising spot of ground. So to 
Paray-le-Monial. At Paray it rained. Paray, I have 
discovered since, is a place of considerable interest. 
It rose into prominence as a lieu de pelerinage in 
the reign of Louis XIV, owing to the revelations 
vouchsafed to a religious of the Order of the 
Visitation, one Marguerite Marie Alacoque. Paray 
is the centre in France of the devotion to the Sacred 
Heart of Jesus, and of all France it is the town 
most frequented by pilgrims, after Lourdes. The 
basilica, which dates from the twelfth century, is a 
good example of the Burgundian type of Romanesque 
architecture. The town contains between four and 
five thousand inhabitants, and, naturally enough, a 
number of religious houses and institutions. I was 
credibly informed that its chief inn was called " The 
Three Pigeons." 

I give these details on the best authority ; my own 



DIGOIN 95 

memories of Paray are concerned with the rain, a 
dark vigil on one of the draughty, twiht platforms of 
the station, and a change of trains. I had decided on 
Digoin, and to Digoin I would go — " Quem Deus vult 
perdere prius dementat." 

The second train was nearly empty ; luckily Digoin was 
the next station. At Digoin I was the only traveller to 
alight. I left my luggage at the consigne, and at half- 
past nine fared out into the unrelenting rain. I 
found myself looking down the broad inevitable road ; 
it was sandy, and the sand had clotted a little in the 
rain, and there were chestnut trees — a combination 
subtly suggestive of summer, which I usually love. 
There were no omnibuses inscribed with the names 
of inviting hostelries competing for the honour of my 
entertainment, so I fared on foot. On the left, just 
outside the station, there was indeed a brilliantly 
lighted hotel, but, on examination, it proved to be 
much smaller than it had looked, and rather squalid. 
I went on up the street, between two lines of low, 
irregular little houses, most of them silent and dark 
and musical with snores and groans. Occasionally 
bleared lamplight suggested a cafe, and slow-moving 
shadows on the blind the presence of some dismal 
drinkers. The rain was falling with a steady per- 
sistence ; I began to feel wet, and it got gradually 
on my nerves. Still there was no sign of an hotel, no 
sign of a town, no place, no central point, nothing but 
this interminable road of dark houses. I walked on 
and on, longing to shout " Wake up ! wake up ! " 
at the top of my voice ; and at last I came to cross- 
roads. This surely must be the " prosperous town 



96 THE LOIRE 

of Digoin " now. I turned to the right and found 
myself in a square, in the midst of which stood a tall, 
silent church surrounded by silent stone houses : a 
gas lamp flickered in one corner. Dark clouds hurried 
across the sky, rain fell in gusts, and I turned wildly 
down the first side street that presented itself, only 
to emerge, after five minutes' quick walking, back in 
the long, straight station road. I recalled that pre- 
tentious-looking inn that I had first seen, and avoided ; 
confessed myself beaten and returned to it. It was 
now ten o'clock, and the few remaining revellers were 
on the point of retiring to bed. Inside the big caf^ 
were the usual mildewed " billards," two evil-looking 
peasants drinking beer with a more than British stolidity, 
a slatternly woman who looked as though she had been 
engaged as a charwoman by the day, and had been 
forced to work overtime (strands of her dirty yellow 
hair escaped and fell down ; the corners of her mouth 
drooped with discontent), and a small Swiss waiter 
of about fourteen, with blond hair and cherubic eyes. 
I inquired of the waiter for a room ; he referred me to 
the discontented charwoman, who handed out a key. 
The little waiter lighted a candle and preceded me, 
leading the way into a back garden. Here the wind 
and rain put the candle out, and he had to hurry 
back for a box of matches. We then climbed along 
the back of the house till we came to a step which 
nearly " threw " me, crossed a gravel drive, reached 
an outhouse, ascended a wooden " outside " stair- 
case, like the one at Goudet, and soon found our- 
selves in a long corridor with bedrooms opening 
out of it on either side. The waiter deposited me with 



DIGOIN 



97 



a quaint little bow in Number Seven, and departed to 
fetch my luggage. The room was small and square, 
the window bolted and shuttered, the bed old and of 
mahogany, with an end curling like a disdainful lip. 
It was surmounted by a red, mountainous quilt ; the 




Digoin 



bottom sheet was not there, or rather it was one with 
the mattress — a union that filled me with distrust. 
Its texture was coarse in the extreme, and it was of 
an evil yellowish colour. I sat down on a creaky, not 
too safe chair, and read the embellished lettering of 



98 THE LOIRE 

the little placard over the chimney-piece : " Va, Jeune 
Fille k Jesus ! Va ! Va ! Va ! " till I lost all patience 
with Christian ideals, and waited in a dejection more 
utter, 1 am sure, than anything experienced by those 
new to Pentonville or HoUoway. When my luggage 
arrived, pyjamaed, I considered the necessity of entering 
the bed. The candle was spluttering, it would be out 
in a moment ; there was no time to be lost. I threw 
the bulging red quilt in one corner, held up the 
flickering candle in one hand, and with the other drew 
the coverlet desperately back. ... A moment of 
suspense terminated by a piercing scream. ... I 
tugged hard at the bell, and discovered it was not there. 
There was no bell. I advanced to the outer door, so 
like the door of a loft, stood in the rain at the top 
of the wooden stairs, and resolutely called. There 
was no reply. There are moments of bitterness, of 
despair, in everyone's life which may not be expressed 
in words, which lie too deep for tears, and that damp 
and melancholy vigil I shall be a long time forgetting. 
But my voice, hoarse with yearning, at length 
penetrated through the night to the little Swiss boy, 
and he came running. I asked for the patronne. " Bien, 
M'sieu." Another pause. Eventually, snail-like with 
annoyance, the slatternly creature I had mistaken 
for a charwoman came shambling through the rain. 
With a bony hand she shaded a guttering piece of 
candle, stuck in a brass candlestick, and its feeble 
light, falling on her face, gave her a momentary witch- 
like look as she came through the yard towards me. 
She tried to parley from the bottom of the stairs, but 
no— up she must come. " But, M'sieu, it is already 



DIGOIN 99 

late." Nonsense, it was only half-past ten, and, late 
or not, she must look. The unexpected force of a 
mild man startled was too much for her, and she came 
meekly. My cowp de thiatre, as I threw back the sheet, 
was not doomed to failure : " it " had not moved. "Ah ! " 
said the patronne, pouncing suddenly with index finger 
and thumb, and holding these in front of the candle. 
" Ah ! " she said, with feebly simulated surprise, " c'est 
une petite bete." I preserved a face of stone, waiting 
strategically for her explanation. Incidentally, so great 
was my emotion that all my French had deserted me. 
She went on, suddenly voluble. It suffices, she ex- 
plained, for some people to sleep but one night in a bed 
to produce such a result. I gasped. " But there is 
another room," she said, " a bigger room. Would 
M'sieu come this way ? " She opened the door, held 
the candle high up to light her way down the long 
passage, and the curious torchlight procession set off. 
The little waiter, carrying my shoes in his hand and my 
clothes over his arm, brought up the rear. This night, 
I became convinced, I should be murdered if I slept a 
wink. Madame threw open the door of a cavernous 
room on the right, and said I could have that. There 
were two windows shuttered and bolted, a vast ominous 
clothes-press, and by the flickering candle-light I 
discovered no less than three beds surmounted by 
three monstrous quilts. . . . The appearance the room 
presented to a nervous mind was, in the last degree, 
terrifying. Beneath those quilts one could imagine the 
murdered corpses of three generations of married 
couples. They were lying on their backs, quite still, and 
it was they who made the crimson quilts so ominously 



100 THE LOIRE 

bulge ! . . . I shuddered and withdrew ; the procession 
re-formed. Resigning myself to remaining in the same 
room, after all, as the yetite bete and his brothers, I was 
very firm in the matter of clean sheets. Madame and 
Adolphe departed, leaving me with vague assurances. 
Another wait ; then the reappearance of Adolphe alone, 
in great distress. Would I figure to myself that both 
the patron and Madame's mother-in-law were ill, that 
Madame was much worried, and, in short, the sheets 
could not be found at that hour ? There was, however, 
another room which he would show me. 

I expressed a hope that it was better than the last, 
and was plaintively reassured — it was a perfect room. 
We went out again in the rain, which had kept up, as a 
kind of chorus to these proceedings, a melancholy 
drip, drip ; climbed up another outside staircase, and 
entered the upper floor of the hotel proper. Here were 
greater signs of comfort, a polished floor and papered 
walls. Adolphe opened one of the rooms with a tre- 
mendous flourish : " Via, M'sieu," he said, and put the 
candle down on the chest of drawers while I looked 
round Evidently it was the best bedroom ; the floor was 
polished, and skin rugs slithered about over its surface ; 
the bed was massive and newer in appearance than the 
others ; the pillow-slip of a recognisable linen, and 
frilled. But somehow I was not at ease. I almost 
suspected that someone — the mother-in-law, perhaps — 
had been hastily bundled away to make room for me. 
I took the candle and advanced, full of suspicion. 
This was too much for Adolphe, who had taken the 
whole matter greatly to heart. His little blue eyes filled 
with tears, and, laying one hand on the bed-clothes 



DIGOIN 101 

and pressing the other against his shirt-front, he looked 
up at me, saying brokenly, " M'sieu, je vous jure que 
c'est propre ; je vous jure que c'est propre." 

We considered one another gravely, and — ^hopeless 
sentimentalist that I am — I squashed my unworthy 
suspicions, and dismissed him with a franc, for which 
he shook me by the hand. But Adolphe will, I fear, 
come to a bad end ; that night of horror, over which 
I must draw a veil, proved him to be a false, untruthful 
boy. . . . 

At the hour that I was up and dressed there was no 
coffee to be had, but there was sunshine, and I went 
out to examine Digoin under more favourable conditions. 
The only redeeming feature that I could discover was 
its back gardens, fairylands shut in by warm stone 
walls, all glowing with colour, with corners full of a 
rich green shade, and trees from which hung the swings 
soon to be set in motion by the little feet now curled 
up in bed behind the green shutters. These gardens 
sloped down to the towing-path of the canal along 
which I walked. Already the washerwomen v/ere 
pounding and thumping at their boards : a low, evil- 
looking, slatternly set of women, unlike any that I saw 
in any other part of France. The canal is shaded by 
two straight rows of chestnuts planted close together, 
a cool green avenue in the midst of which the line of 
water stagnates and smells. 

But no reasonable child could object to being brought 
up in one of those back gardens ; for the rest there is 
little to be said for Digoin. It is on the right bank of 
the Loire, and has some commercial importance through 
being a kind of canal junction. The town is situated 



102 THE LOIRE 

between two arms of the Canal du Centre, of which one 
enters the Loire and the other joins on to the Canal 
lateral a la Loire and the canal between Digoin and 
Roanne, by means of a 'pont-aqueduc over the river. 
Just below Digoin the Loire is joined by the Arroux, 
its most considerable tributary hitherto. For the rest 
Digoin has about seven thousand people, is noted for its 
faience and has disagreeable station officials. I don't 
know when I have left a place with so much joy ! 



CHAPTER VII 

NEVERS 

ri10 get to Nevers by train from Digoin you are 
-*- supposed to go first to Moulins — an old cathedral 
town of considerable importance, about the same 
size as Nevers and situated on the Allier, in the 
province of the Bourbonnais. If through wilfulness, 
or for your vow's sake, you elect to go by way of Gilly- 
sur-Loire and Cercy-la-Tour, you have only got your- 
self to blame if you don't like the adventure. 

To Gilly the train ambles down a grass-grown track 
through a slightly undulating country, rich with corn- 
fields and pleasantly broken up with trees and shady 
lanes, on the borderland of Burgundy and the Bour- 
bonnais. The river is swift, in these parts, but in the 
summer leaves half its bed uncovered, while its sand- 
banks justify the epithet that Heredia applies to it 
somewhere — "la blonde Loire." At Gilly you change. 
At the middle platform I found drawn up four battered 
carriages with windows of the old " coach " shape, 
rounded at the bottom, and paint that blistered in the 
sun. My compartment was as burning as a green- 
house when I got inside ; the grey cloth seat almost 
too hot to sit down on. The notice stuck on the cracked 
windows of all the other'compartments of this particular 



104 THE LOIRE 

wagon, " compartiment condamne," gave a curious air 
of ruin to the little train. In the process of time an 
engine, with a tall funnel, a large piston very low down, 
and a displayed collection of entrails in the shape of 
winding yellow pipes, waddled up very much as it were 
on all fours and joined the ruinous coaches with a jolt 
that nearly put the finishing touches to their decay. 

Leaving Gilly where the Loire, studded, as usual, 
with great sand-banks, is crossed by two bridges near 
together, the train started on its precarious journey 
through a country that became sometimes parklike, 
with green stretches of lovely woodland, sometimes an 
open expanse golden with broom. At Bourbon-Lancy, 
a few stations from Gilly, 1 had to turn out again. The 
river is about a mile below the station, at the small 
commune of Le Fourneau, and the long white route 
nationale crosses it by a suspension bridge. Here the 
Loire is broad and swift, with large, uncovered banks 
of gravel, but looked navigable enough for light boats 
going with the stream. The only boats 1 noticed were 
a punt and two small fiat-bottomed barges. 

The principal houses in this little hamlet were two 
inns on opposite sides of the road. One was built of red 
brick and shadeless, the other was an old square stone 
house with two green tables overhung by two chestnut 
trees, on either side of its front door. Here (but in the 
coolness of the big bar-parlour), facing a long announce- 
ment containing the clauses of the law against public 
drunkenness, I ate a modest omelette, before exploring 
the town. Several babies, who had escaped from their 
mothers' charge while she was cooking, came and 
performed slow somersaults in front of me, and one 



NEVERS 105 

tiny girl succeeded most successfully in standing on her 
head. She then regarded me, waiting, no doubt, for 
some sign of approval, with a chubby finger in the 
corner of her mouth. 

Bourbon-Lancy is an old town of about the same 
size as Paray-le-Monial, which enjoys a certain measure 
of popularity as a watering-place and station thermale. 
It is nearly two miles away from the station on a com- 
manding hill which dominates the valley of the Borne, 
a tributary of the Loire. The principal church is modern 
Gothic, but boasts a picture by Puvis de Chavannes. 
There are some good old houses, particularly one with 
a carved fa9ade dating from the sixteenth century, 
which adjoins the old Tour de I'Horloge. The Place de 
1 'Hotel de Ville is a little downward-sloping square with 
a modest seventeenth-century town hall, built of stone. 
The best inn in the place — apart from the Hotel de 
I'Etablissement Thermal near the baths — is said to be the 
Hotel de la Poste ; though I cannot speak of either 
from personal experience. 

After passing under the bridge of Le Fourneau the 
Loire receives the waters of the Cressonne, widens to 
make two big islands at a spot south of Charrin, and 
bears north-westwards to make another at Decize. 
The railway, however, takes the traveller inexorably to 
Cercy-la-Tour, past little stations where the wives of 
the Brigadiers-Poseurs stand at the doors of their little 
houses and watch the trains, shading their eyes with their 
hands. Once again I was turned out on to the platform 
and made to change. The platform happened to be 
quite full when I tried to jump down on to it in answer 
to " Tout le monde descend." It was full of soldiers. 



106 THE LOIRE 

laughing, perspiring, and swearing in their heavy blue 
coats with red epaulettes, and it was barely possible to 
turn round until a long train of cattle-trucks arrived 
and bore them, non-protesting, away. I cannot imagine 
an English Tommy travelling contentedly in a cattle- 
truck ; but then our soldiers have all the arrogance of 
volunteers. Cercy is a station on the way to Chateau- 
Chinon and the hill country of the Morvan, and takes 
the latter part of its name from the great tower which is 
the only remnant of its ancient citadel. It is the most 
celebrated centre for horse-breeding in the Nivernais ; 
and its great horse fairs are much frequented by buyers 
from different parts of the world. 

From Cercy it is about nine miles, down the valley of 
the Aron, to Decize — fine old town of about five thousand 
people huddled on the rocky knoll of an island in the 
Loire. Decize stands high above the surrounding coun- 
try, its group of roofs, towers, and spires encircled by 
trees, and is at the edge of a far-stretching forest land. 
Old engravings show it with a girdle of walls and towers 
with pointed roofs, though these have now disappeared 
and made way for the usual boulevard. The church of 
St. Are is old and interesting, with an eleventh-century 
choir and a double crypt dating from Carolingian times 
and containing St. Are's tomb. There are also the ruins 
of a castle of the counts of Nevers with a belvidere ; and 
a number of other interesting old buildings. A curious 
tribute to Decize (" Je ne sai vil miex assise ") is paid 
in an old Conte Morale by Jehan le Gallois : 

" Jelian le Gallois nous la conte 
Qu'il ot eu la terre de Conte 
De Nevers 1 riche borgois 
Qui mont et sage et cortois." 







^ -vz.* 




NEVERS 107 

Then the castle is mentioned : 

" Lots s'en part iriez et plains d'ire 
Si s'en va parmi le chastel. 
Qui mont seoit et bien et bel ; 
Je ne sai vil miex assise ; 
Si est apelee Dysise, 
Et siet en une isle de Loire." 

Its situation at the junction of two canals and on the 
railway line between Nevers and Chagny has given 
Decize some commercial importance, and the industrial 
suburbs have grown up of the faubourg d'Allier on the 
left bank, where the lateral canal joins the Loire by a 
branch which allows the boats to be towed across to 
the opening of the Nivernais Canal on the right bank ; 
of the faubourg Saint-Prive, built on the banks of the 
Aron, which joins the Loire at Decize ; and of the village 
of St. Leger-des-Vignes, on the right bank, close to the 
railway station. The various factories and forges near 
Decize form the first links of a chain bordering the Loire 
as far as Briare, of foundries, ironworks, and manu- 
factories of (among other things) faience and " pearl " 
buttons. The iron industry, however, will soon have 
passed away from the Nivernais, except for a few large 
centres, as completely as it has passed away from 
Sussex. The country is spotted with the ugly ruins of 
furnaces and smoke-stacks, and out of the many hundred 
ironworks flourishing at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century, those at Imphy and Fourchambault are the 
only two of importance which still remain. On the right 
bank of the Loire, between Decize and Nevers, there were 
numerous small forges at one time. The supply of wood 
was inexhaustible, and the little streams running down 
to join the river provided the motive force to work the 



108 THE LOIRE 

engines, and enabled the metal to be washed. These forges 
have now, however, practically all disappeared. 

The next station beyond Decize is the pretty village of 
Sougy, with the ruins of the fourteenth-century castle 
of Rosemont on the low hill overlooking the river. 
The Loire at Sougy and for many miles below 
Nevers, though wide, has great stretches of uncovered 
sand. In the flood season, however, it more than fills 
its bed, and rolls a stupendous flood of water which 
often does an immense amount of damage. 

After passing Imphy (a town whose prosperity has 
often been gravely threatened), which has facing it on 
the left bank the fourteenth-century chateau of Cheve- 
non ; the Nievre, the small stream which gives its name 
to the department, is crossed, and you arrive at Nevers. 

On reaching Nevers you are conscious, all at once, of a 
sudden change. You are no longer in unknown France. 
Nevers is a regular " resort," frequented by motorists, 
conquered by America, and taken to the bosom of 
Messrs. Cook and Son. This fact suggests itself subtly. 
I cannot say that I saw any English people in the 
streets ; or any indication of the change worth specially 
mentioning, unless perhaps that I noticed for the first 
time on my pilgrimage the presence of a certain ubiqui- 
tous English periodical on the station bookstall. Nevers 
is smaller by some eight or nine thousand people than 
Roanne, and it has no tramcars, but what a splendid, 
dignified appearance it makes ! Many another traveller 
has made this rather obvious remark, including Young, 
who visited it in January, 1790. " Nevers makes a fine 
appearance," he writes, " rising proudly from the Loire ; 
but, on the first entrance, it is like a thousand other 



NEVERS 109 

places. Towns, thus seen, resemble a group of women, 
huddled close together ; you see their nodding plumes 
and sparkling gems, till you fancy that ornament is 
the herald of beauty ; but, on a nearer inspection, the 
faces are too often but common clay." 

Of my own arrival at Nevers I have the happiest 
recollections. I descended from the station, indeed, 
like a royal personage. (I left it, in the process of time, 
like an undesirable alien.) To take, however, the 
arrival first. The brassiest of brass bands was installed 
in the station yard, playing a march of triumph, the 
sunshine poured down over everything, the air had a 
momentary freshness and it was excellent to be young. 
Officials walked about exuding beneficence and courtesy, 
and the music threw one's head back, making the step 
go briskly. I felt as though I were being " received." 
I was perhaps prejudiced by these musical honours, but 
I certainly took an immediate fancy to Nevers, a fancy 
which, like many other too hasty judgments, time has 
not altogether confirmed. The road leading uphill from 
the station is commonplace enough, perhaps, but at the 
top of the hill is a broad open ylace, the Place Carnot, 
with a lovely wooded promenade on the left-hand side, 
and on the right, the cathedral and the old palace of the 
Counts of Nevers. This was the first real " Chateau de 
la Loire " that I had seen : a charming medley of 
fantastic turrets, pointed roofs, and elaborately carved 
masonry. It is now the Palais de Justice, and the Com- 
missary of Police inhabits it ; but of him later. Just 
then, in the bright morning sun, the whole place seemed 
almost too good to be true. 

The chateau, and the cathedral of St. Cyr with its 



110 THE LOIRE 

lofty and beautiful tower and lovely side-chapels, are 
situated on a plateau which dominates the valley of the 
Loire. The bed of the Loire is here chiefly an immense 
expanse of yellow sand, in the summer, shot with 
gleaming runlets of water ; but as Ardouin-Dumazet 
says : " Vienne I'hiver et Ton aura I'impression d'un 
Mississipi, tant le flot sera puissant." A pleasant, 
formal French garden lies between the cathedral and 
the chateau, increasing the charm of this city within a 
city, this beautiful " heart " of Nevers. Walking to the 
end of the Place de la R^publique, in front of the chateau 
you come to the edge of the steep declivity and look 
down on the old parts of the town underneath, and across 
the hroadfonds of the Loire, wliich are terminated only by 
a line of low hills in the far distance. These low-lying, 
desolate tracts are studded with ponds left by the floods, 
called gours. The vegetation, such as it is, consists chiefly 
of osiers and dwarf poplars, and efforts at cultivation have 
only been successful at rare points. 

From this raised plateau containing the central place, 
bounded by the steep slope on the side nearest the 
river, the streets of Nevers descend in all directions. 
The principal street is the rue du Commerce, which runs 
down from the Prefecture, passing the beautiful 
Romanesque church of St. Etienne, to the Ni^vre. It 
boasts a singularly ponderous triumphal arch, erected by 
one of the Dukes of Nevers in honour of Louis XV, 
after the battle of Fontenoy. Its inscription is by 
Voltaire, and he was paid 500 francs for the four lines. 
They are hardly inspired : 

" Au grand homme modeste, au plus doux des vaiuqueurs, 
Le pere de I'Etat, au inaitre de aos coeurs," 



NEVERS 111 

on one side, and on the other : 

" A ce grand monument qu'eleva I'Abondance, 
Reconnaissez Nevers et jugez de la France." 

The park on the left of the Place Carnot — to which I have 
referred — contains one of the coolest, most cathedral-like 
promenades that are to be found in France. It was 
planted by one of the last Dukes of Nevers. I remem- 
ber the blackness of the trees at sunset, and how you 
could see the pink and green and gold in the sky 
through the sombre, clearly-outlined trunks. Old men 
and women sat motionless on the seats in the gloaming, 
and a bugle-call from the barracks at the top was all there 
was to break the stillness. 

Several happy days slipped by in exploring Nevers. 
Much of my time was spent in the narrow streets of the 
older part of the town in the neighbourhood of the 
Porte de Croux — a fourteenth-century tower, relic of 
the fortifications, which contains a musee lapidaire. 
Near here used to dwell a colony of Italian faienciers, 
brought from Italy by one of the Gonzagas of Mantua 
who became Dukes of Nevers and made the city one of 
the most flourishing art-centres in France. Up till the 
time of the Revolution and even well on into the nine- 
teenth century, the faiencerie of Nevers gave employ- 
ment to a considerable number of artists and work- 
people. They lived all together in this quarter of the 
town, close to the ramparts and the Porte de Croux, and 
had even a church of their own, the Church of St. 
Genest, which has now been turned into a brasserie. 
There were four faience factories still in existence in 
1864 ; there remains but one to-day, which, however, 
strives to preserve the ancient traditions and numbers 



112 THE LOIRE 

among its workpeople, some who can trace their descent 
from those Italian artists who settled in the city more 
than three centuries ago. There are many references 
to the potiers in local folk-poetry, and I noted down one 
song called the " Chanson de Patouillot : potier de 
Nevers." 

" Tes rubans barivolants, 
Belle rose, 
Tes rubans barivolants — 
Belle Rose au rosier blanc. 

Quand elles sont gentes, 
Reveillons les done, ces filles, 
Quand elles sont pentes, (ugly) 

Laissez les dormir. 
Alle a les yeux bien terluisants 
Tout comme deux pierr's a gniamaut 

Si ben que I'e'carlate 
Qu'est un rouge ben fin, 
N'est que d'la couleur varte 
Aupres de son biau teint. 

C^est les filles de Chateau- Chinon, 
Les petites Morvandelles, 
Qui ont vendu leur cotte et cotillon 
Pour avoir des dentelles ! '' 

In addition to its faience, Nevers was at one time 
very celebrated for the manufacture o^ glass toys, an 
industry doubtless carried on by some of the Italian 
workers whom the Gonzagas had attracted to that city. 
In a rather dull little work entitled " Remarks in the 
Grande Tour of France and Italy, lately performed by 
a Person of Quality " (1692), is the statement that 
" Nevers, the chief city of the Province of Nivernois, 
is as famous for pretty little toys made in Glass, as 
Moulins in Bourbonnais is for Scissors and Iron-work." 



NEVERS 113 

Nevers boasted at one time an important cannon foundry, 
now suppressed, though there are still foundries and work- 
shops in the faubourg de la Pique. Among its manu- 
factures, the production of glue and artificial manures 
have some importance. But the ironworks of Nevers 
are decayed and overshadowed in comparison with 
those of its near neighbours, Imphy and Fourchambault. 
The town has anything but a manufacturing appear- 
ance ; indeed, as I mentioned before, it is quickly 
evident that it is well in the recognised tourist routes. 
It is possible that this fact may account for the 
excellence of its two principal cafes, the Grand Cafe 
in the rue du Commerce and the Cafe Glacier. It was 
at the latter, I think, that I heard two amusing singers 
from the Boite-a-Fursy who were on a summer tournee. 
Later they were to greet my entry into a cafe at Blois 
with the familiar musical honours : 

'' Soyez le bienvenu 
A la Boite a Fursy ! " 

Just then, after some weeks of rustication, they seemed 
like all urbanity and its joys. 

1 did not pay much attention, I must confess, to 
the Loire, during my first few days at Nevers, but 
on the morning that I had settled on for my departure 
I got up very early, crossed the Place Carnot, and went 
down a quiet street, past the lovely little Baroque 
church of the Visitation with its richly carved and 
ornamented west front, into the rue du Commerce, 
which I descended till I got to the Quai de la Loire. 
This quay flanks actually the Ni^vre, until the smaller 
river joins the Loire just before the great stone bridge 
of fifteen arches, which bears across the route nationale 



114 THE LOIRE 

to BoLirges and Moulins. I can never resist bridges, 
there are no places like them for the confirmed idler. I 
" hung," almost alone, on the bridge at Nevers, listening 
idly to the whacking and thumping that came, a little 
softened by distance, from the washing barges down- 
stream. It occurred to me that none but the lightest 
of boats could hope to get through that bridge, and 
even then only through the extreme right-hand arch, 
that is to say the arch nearest the bank, on the 
Nevers side. I sat on the parapet, opened my pocket- 
book, and made a pencil note to this effect in case (as 
I hope and intend it may) it should happen to me to 
descend the Loire again, in a canvas canoe. Having 
finished my little memorandum I glanced up as I was 
shutting my notebook. 1 put the book away hurriedly 
and stood to attention. An elegant military man in a 
black, well-fitting tunic with red knee breeches and 
gleaming boots, holding a yellow notched cane in one 
of his kid-gloved hands in such a way that it stuck 
straight up his back like a poker, was eyeing me 
suspiciously. He had wintry grey eyes, bushy eyebrows, 
an iron-grey imperial. Yet he looked, I must admit it, 
a trifle too homely and bourgeois for the popular notion 
of the military officer. Seeing that he regarded me with 
an unconcealed interest, I thought it would be excus- 
able of me if I did the same. The usual laws of courtesy 
might perhaps be waived for a few moments. I 
examined him ; and I am only sorry that — soldier as he 
was of my beloved France, most admirable, most civilised 
of countries — I could not admire him more. He lacked 
altogether the distinction of carriage which has been ob- 
servable in such of our soldiers as I have seen, and he 



NEVERS 115 

certainly did not look any more highly intellectual. 
I walked on quickly across the bridge till the idea 
came to me suddenly to stop and turn. I did so ; and 
found myself confronting the iron-grey officer, who sank 
down on to his heels again and scowled. The whole 
dScor was clearly arranged for a tensely dramatic scene — 
only the dialogue was lacking. " And now, sir, damn you, 
an explanation ! " I ought perhaps to have said, had my 
French been equal to it, or at all events have exclaimed 
" Carramba ! " or " Corpo di Bacco ! " and slapped my 
hip pocket. I do not possess a hip pocket ; it was all 
I could do to refrain from laughing. The officer turned 
quickly away, presented to me a bristling and inimical 
back and walked off and out of sight. For the moment I 
forgot him. I went back to the Place Mosse that faces 
the bridge, looked at the ruins of the Romanesque 
church of St. Sauveur, then continued by the river till 
I came to the Tour Goguin — round tower with a pointed 
roof like that of a Provencal windmill, that is one of the 
few remains of the ancient fortifications. I sought, in 
the growing heat, the shade of two even rows of tall 
trees, with bare thin trunks and thick bushy tops that 
shut out the sun, and walked downstream as far as the 
bridge that carries the railway line across the river. The 
Loire is very swift just here and abnormally sandy, giving 
the effect of sprawling anyhow over the countryside. The 
boats I saw were for the most part long black punts 
with rough poles ; the more elaborate craft, of which 
there were a few, had a large steering oar with a rudder- 
shaped blade, projecting from the stern. 

As I turned back towards the centre of the city, I 
heard the noise of a military band, and had to wait 



116 THE LOIRE 

while a whole regiment passed down the rue de la 
Grippe. Apart from them, save for a workman in 
corduroys and a blue shirt, I had the road to myself, 
but I was more than surprised by the amount of 
attention I received. The entire regiment glowered at 
me. The men nudged one another as though to say 
(regardless of grammar), " That's him." The officers 
twirled their moustaches and looked as if they intended 
to eat me. I felt once more that it was an occasion 
when the stricter code might be relaxed in favour of 
something more homely and agreeable to the natural 
man ; and when they looked at me I looked at them. 
They were in undress uniform — a kind of light, biscuit- 
coloured hollands — and certainly seemed a useful if rather 
slouching lot. The officers disappointed me. I ex- 
amined them with all respect, but for some inexplicable 
reason they looked as though it was as much as they 
could do to refrain from a sabre charge. If glances could 
have killed I should have died a thousand deaths, and 
I was quite glad to see the last of so many spiteful backs. 
I returned to my hotel, packed and proceeded in good 
time to the station (having sent my luggage on in front), 
in order to catch a convenient train for Tracy-Sancerre. 
I felt sorry to be leaving such a pleasant city as Nevers ; 
I had not, however, quite left it. As I was walking in 
a leisurely way into the station yard, a hand was laid 
with such force on my shoulder that my cigarette nearly 
fell out of my mouth. 

" Pardon, M'sieu," said an individual in white duck 
trousers, a dark tunic with red adornments and a 
peaked cap crossed, like a hot-cross bun, with red 
stripes. He had long black moustaches and did the 



NEVERS 117 

" Fierce Glance " act. Feeling like a conspirator in 
musical comedy, I took another cigarette and assured 
the official that it was of no consequence ; but he 
proceeded to cross-question me. Why had I come to 
Nevers ? 

" Oh, just to have a look round," I replied ingenu- 
ously. The official nodded his head. 
13^," You have been noticed," he said curtly. I felt in 
my turn for the blond ornament of my upper lip. 

" Naturally enough," I replied, " the girls do dog 
one. . . ." 

" On the bridge," he snapped, " by the Comman- 
dant. ..." This last remark was a revelation ; things 
were getting serious. 

" Would it derange you," he asked, with an access of 
politeness, " to accompany me to the bureau of the 
Commissary ? It is quite close." I replied that I had 
twenty-five minutes before the departure of my train 
and that I should be delighted. We set off up the road, 
the cynosure of every eye. At the bottom of the Avenue 
de la Gare a posse of four gentlemen in white duck 
trousers, black moustaches, and hot-cross bun hats 
appeared from nowhere, and fell in behind us. In- 
dividual agents seemed to be stationed at intervals 
all the way up the road to the chateau. The 
arrangements for my capture were indeed flattering 
in their completeness. On my arrival at the bureau, 
I was made to wait in a dark room full of 
scowlers till the moment of my examination arrived. 
They scowled horribly ! It must be confessed that I felt 
extremely guilty ; but I wondered how it was possible 
that I could look as naughty as they appeared to think. 



118 THE LOIRE 

me. After a while I was summoned before the Com- 
missary. Up a winding mediaeval staircase I was led — 
it might quite well have been to a chief executioner's 
operating room — and eventually a door was thrown 
open and I found myself in a sixteenth-century apart- 
ment that made me positively gasp with delight. 
Such a chimney-piece and ceiling, such old carved 
oak ! A subdued sunlight came through the casements 
making strips of gold across the covers of some of the 
leather-bound quartos which lay on a solid table under 
the window. I guessed whose room it was I had stumbled 
into and looked for the Sieur de Montaigne with his 
elegantly pointed beard (style Henri IV) sitting back 
in his oak chair resting his head against his left hand, 
and with his shoe caressing the hound at his feet. 
The Sieur de Montaigne wished me a polite good morning 
and bade me be seated ; alas ! he was, after all, the 
Commissary. The Commissary, too, had a pointed 
grey beard ; but his shiny frock-coat and the tiny bit of 
red ribbon fixed in his button-hole prevented him 
from being picturesque. He was business-like, 

" You have been observed ? " he suggested, raising 
an eyebrow like a question mark. 

" What at ? " I asked in some trepidation ; there 
are so many things about which even the best of us 
prefers secrecy. 

" Come, come," remarked my cross-examiner. " You 
were making notes on the bridge ; the Commandant 
observed you. He took you for a spy." Fierce glance. 

" The English must be piffling spies," I remarked, 
" if they make their notes in the middle of a bridge 
under the eyes of an officer in uniform. The Com- 



NEVERS 119 

mandant's conclusions appear to have been arrived 
at a little too easily." I produced the illegible note- 
book, handed it across, and suggested, modestly, that 
r was a mere author, addicted, when possible, to 
canoeing. Tableau ! Contempt for military intellect, 
combined with enthusiasm for " Le Sport," worked 
the most sudden and gratifying change. Stealthily 
we commented on the idiocy of military men in general 
(as compared with the astuteness of the police), and 
on the folly of M. le Commandant in particular. We 
discussed the Entente Cordiale, we paid " tributes " to 
the beauties of our respective countries, the admirable 
virtues possessed by our respective nations, declared 
that our friendship in the future should even rise as 
far as the exchange of picture postcards. Visiting- 
cards, at the moment, changed hands ceremonially ; 
we bowed — and I was free. Cheated of their prey, 
as it were, the gendarmes glowered at me as I passed 
out and raced to catch my train. I caught it — not 
without relief. In spite of the Commissary's visiting- 
card, which I held in my hand as a kind of talisman, 
I felt horribly as if at Nevers, I had been — found out ! 



CHAPTER VIII 

SANCERRE 

TT^OR adventurous persons, the pleasantest way 
-*- of proceeding down the Loire from Nevers during 
the dry season, when it is at its least dangerous, must be 
on board a punt or serviceable canoe. The stream 
runs swiftly, and there are dangers of quicksands and 
whirlpools under bridges, but none that two men 
skilled in the use of river craft need fear. An un- 
sinkable folding boat of the Accordian type, that I 
was able to experiment with on a lower reach, should 
do very well. It is not an unwieldy addition to one's 
luggage, and can be fitted with a tent that makes it 
pleasant to sleep in on a summer night. It draws 
hardly any water — you could almost float it in your 
bath — while it has at the same time sufficient beam 
for safety. The customs dues on these boats amount 
to about forty-five francs, but this sum is returnable if 
the boat is brought back within three months. But 
perhaps the safer way would be to hire one of the 
local punts, especially built to suit the river's pecu- 
liarities, and float downstream in it. 

The railway keeps very close to the Loire, forsaking it 
only for some miles between Fourchambault and La 
Charite, when^ cutting off a beri4 of thp riyer^ it runs 



SANCERRE 121 

through the watering-place of Pougues-les-Eaux. Four- 
chambault is a town of 6020 inhabitants, engaged in the 
iron industry; almost a suburb of Nevers. The Loire 
here is augmented by the waters of the Allier, which 
joins it at a point about midway between Nevers and 
Fourchambault. The Allier, like the Loire, has its 
source in the Cevennes. It forms two-thirds of the 
combined stream at their junction, has a more even 
flow of water, and is also perhaps a trifle longer than 
the Loire when it flows into it. 

Pougues is a watering-place which — perhaps because 
it is on the way to Vichy — has never quite succeeded. 
It is situated in surroundings of great peacefulness, 
in a lovely country of woodland and forest, of low, 
tree-covered hills sloping on one side to the broad plain, 
with the Loire doubling through it. From the top 
of the vine-clad hill above the town, called the Mont 
Givre, is a lovely view of the country-side. The 
valley of the Loire lies outspread, " mysterieuse- 
ment vaste," between the low hills of Berry, black with 
forests, and those of Nivernais, equally tree-covered. 
Pougues itself is in a pretty vale : a vale of peace. In 
the Park of I'Etablissement des Bains are several 
hotels, a casino, baths, and drinking-fountains. The 
cold springs for which the place is frequented contain 
carbonates of lime and iron. There is an annexe of 
the principal hotel on the plateau of Mont Givre above 
the town. Pougues is on the main road between Nevers 
and La Charite, the next town of importance on the 
Loire, seventeen miles from Nevers and nine from 
Pougues. The route nationale to La Charite runs, 
with an exasperating straightness, through a verdant 



122 THE LOIRE 

country-side before reaching the Loire, skirting on its 
way the vine-clad heights of Tronsanges. Road and 
railway, when the Loire is attained, run side by side 
along the bank of the river, which is here vast in extent, 
though in the dry seasons a thin stream of water covers 
only a small part of its great bed of yellow sand. When 
the water is high, the spectacle is said to be one of the 
most magnificent in France. The plateau above the river, 
across which the road runs, has been denuded of trees 
and turned into arable land ; its golden corn-fields 
stretch to the edge of the great forests of Ni^vre. 

The town of La Charite, quickly reached, is still one 
of the most delightful in the Nivernais. Before the 
Wars of Religion, in which it suffered much, it must 
have been a place of great splendour and beauty. It 
owes its name to a Cluniac Priory founded in the 
eighth century, of which little now remains. The 
abbey buildings were reconstructed in the eighteenth 
century, in the formal but, to modern eyes, agreeable 
style of that epoch, but were afterwards almost en- 
tirely destroyed by a fire which also grievously injured 
the church. Still, of the monastic buildings besides 
the church there is yet to be seen a fifteenth-century 
gateway, some ogival galleries supported on graceful 
columns, and two square halls with richly ornamented 
roofs that were — at least, till recently — used by a 
wine merchant. 

The church of Sainte-Croix-Notre-Dame, with its 
exquisite fragments, that enable one to imagine the 
beauties of the twelfth-century abbey church as it 
used to be, is a sad reminder of La Charite's departed 
glories. Only the apsidal chapels, transept, and the 



SANCERRE 



123 



beautiful square tower that rises from it, remain of 
the original church ; the nave dates from 1695, and 



^.:2^f^ 




La Charite 



is aptly described by one writer as being " navrante 
de banalite." 

La Charite has greatly sunk in importance, since 



124 THE LOIRE 

before the Wars of Religion it boasted 10,000 in- 
habitants ; twice its present number. It presents a 
charming appearance, for, unlike most of the towns 
by the Loire, which have their centres away from the 
stream, it turns its face towards the river. Houses look 
down on to a beautiful quay ; and an ancient stone 
bridge, with powerful sharp-pointed stone piers, carries 
the principal street, the rue des Hotelleries, across 
to the faubourg on the island in the middle of the 
stream, which has been likened to a ship at anchor. 
This faubourg is in turn joined by an iron bridge to 
the district of Berry. 

Ardouin-Dumazet writes thus of the general appear- 
ance of the town : " Les tours de I'eglise, les ruines 
des remparts, I'ampitheatre des toits, donnent grande 
allure a ce decor citadin. Le tableau devait etre plus 
saissisant avant les grands desastres qui ont fait perdre 
a la ville son rang parmi les plus importantes du Centre. 
Alors I'eglise dressait une masse majestueuse au- 
dessus des toits, d'autres fleches, d'autres tours jail- 
lissaient a cote d'elle, une enceinte flanquee de tours 
enfermait la cite et en accentuait le caractere." On 
the ruins of the old town, a new, rather commonplace 
town has sprung up, which somehow contrives to 
give a great air of commercial activity. Its corn 
market is important ; and the town is a centre for 
curious industries, such as the making of files, bell- 
founding, and the manufacture of imitation marble. 
This commercial spirit in the Charitois has kept the 
place alive and vigorous, in spite of the disappearance 
of navigation from the Loire, and the absence of the 
diligences, which, like the stage coaches of an English 



SANCERRE 125 

town, used to lend animation to its high street. Motor- 
cars, however, are perhaps commoner now in that 
same street than ever diligences were in the past ; for 
it forms part of the great highway between Paris and 
Vichy. 

After La Charite the river grows still broader. On 
the right - hand side, in the Nivernais, the plateau 
terminates in steep slopes. Opposite, in Berry, the 
valley is a large alluvial plain, thinly sprinkled with 
farms where intensive methods of cultivation prevail. 
The scenery in the Nivernais is more interesting and 
varied ; small streams from the forest wind at the 
bottom of charming valleys. Calcareous rock is quarried 
in this neighbourhood — particularly on the banks of a 
lovely little river — the Mazon — and the beds stretch 
beyond Pouilly. 

On the outskirts of Pouilly the aspect changes, 
woods and sheep pastures and arable land giving way 
before the vine. The vine covers all the soft undulations 
of the country-side round the hamlet of Charenton, 
which is entirely inhabited by vine-dressers. The vine- 
yards sloping towards the Loire are exceptionally rich, 
their opulence contrasting curiously with the shrunken 
river, sliding down between its vast, bare sand-banks. 
The vineyards of Pouilly and its neighbourhood are, 
indeed, among the most celebrated in the valley of the 
Loire, disputing the premier position with the cms even 
of Touraine and Anjou. Its white wines (which must 
not be confused with the Burgundian Pouilly) are 
among the finest that France produces. The village 
of Mesves, through which the road to Pouilly runs — 
it is about four miles from Pouilly, and boasts an 



126 THE LOIRE 

interesting twelfth-century tithe-barn — has also good 
white wines. Pouilly itself is a prosperous little town, 
which suffers in interest from being on a white, dusty 
highway. Its chief attraction is the splendid panoramic 
view of the Loire which it affords — ^the Loire with its 
green islands, sand-banks, and wandering branches, 
and in the distance the little mountains of Berry, and, 
foremost among them, the surprising, dominating 
peak of Sancerre. 

The situation of Sancerre is surely one of the most 
remarkable of any town in France. Proudly perched 
on a green, abrupt hill, it looks down over the valley of 
the great river and over the green undulations of the 
vineyards which surround it. On one who has travelled 
for many days through the plains, through a landscape 
never more than amiable or gracious, the sudden 
appearance of Sancerre on its hill cannot fail to make a 
profound impression. It is the return of the grandiose 
to the landscape, in a place where you had not expected 
it. You would feel the same if you saw a Turner, at 
the Tate Gallery, hung by accident in one of the 
Chantrey rooms. The station of this surprising town 
bears the double name of Tracy-Sancerre. Tracy is a 
small town with a fifteenth-century chateau, on the 
right bank of the river. From the station an omnibus 
conducts the traveller to Sancerre, which is situated 
about three miles away. The road crosses the river 
by the long suspension bridge, crosses also the lateral 
canal, and traverses the little town of Saint-Satur, 
which possesses the choir of a magnificent fifteenth- 
century abbey church. After leaving Saint-Satur, the 
omnibus, with you inside it, passes under the viaduct 



SANCERRE 



127 



bearing the railway from Bourges, and begins to climb 
the side of the hill on which Sancerre is placed. Baedeker 



!lj>' "^''Jjj'J0 






Wy 









'J'ljJIl 




Sancerre 

describes Sancerre as " old and ill-built," so that lovers 
of curious, unexploited places, who know also their 
Baedeker, will have a notion of what to expect. But, 



128 THE LOIRE 

no — it is better still. No one could anticipate the views. 
From the terrace in the park of the modern chateau, 
home of the Uzes family (where also is a relic of the 
fortifications which dates from the fourteenth century 
and bears locally the name of the Tour des Fiefs), the 
three provinces of Berry, Nivernais, and Orl^anais lie 
outspread before you. But even finer views are to be 
had from the peaks which rise to the south of Sancerre. 
One of these, I'Orme-au-Loup, is topped by some 
reddish cliffs which have a covering of heather and golden 
broom, and look very fine from the river. From its 
summit is a charming view over Sancerre and all round, 
across an expanse of country that is apparently bound- 
less, except on the side where it is limited by the distant 
mountains of the Morvan. The Loire forms the greatest 
beauty of the landscape — golden, island-choked and 
broad. At the foot of the hill villages show themselves, 
and appear here and there among the vineyards, which 
cover all the lower slopes. One can discern Menetreol 
half concealed in a hollow, Thauvenay whose red roofs 
alone are visible, and farther off the two scattered 
hamlets of Saint -Bouize and Couargues, which have 
found their place in literature in a book by Monsieur de 
Montalivet. Beyond them is the chateau de Lagrange, 
set in the wooded expanses of its vast park, an estate 
which the Montalivet family still owns. In every fold 
and hollow of the hills are villages and hamlets. Just 
opposite you is the promontory of Tracy, jutting proudly 
out ; Pouilly can be seen beyond it, standing white 
among its vines ; and, vaguer and less distinct, the 
weather-beaten towers of La Charite, backed by the 
bare plateaux of the Donziois, and the low tree-lined 



SANCERRE 



120 



hills of the Nivernais. Turning northwards, one sees 
the circle of Sancerre with its curious narrow old houses 
huddled together ; then the Loire again ; Cosne with its 
wooded islands ; and the great plateau of La Puisaye 






t*4^>^/ .^^ikaajM ''-'^ 




The Loire near Pouilly-sur-Loire 

all dotted with villages and towns. There are no hills 
on this side to impede the view, which stretches even 
to where the great forest of Orleans grows blue on the 
horizon. 

The heather and broom on I'Orme-au-Loup make it 



130 



THE LOIRE 



a lovely resting-place ; and when you tire of the view 
you may recline on the softest of pillows and look up 
at the sky, or even watch merely the blue smoke rising 
from the end of your cigarette, or the grey smoke from 
your lips. 

During the Wars of Religion, Sancerre was for 
Protestantism and Henry of Navarre. It was natur- 
ally a very strong place, and withstood several sieges, 




At 'I'l-acy 

of which one at least is famous. This was in 1573; 
it lasted for eight months, and was accompanied by a 
famine, the records of which make horrible reading. 
When I add that it has an inn — the Hotel du Point du 
Jour et de I'Ecu — I suppose I have given it away 
completely. Yet I doubt if ever a large percentage of 
the hundreds of thousands of people, who in very year 
notice its surprising aspect from the carriage windows 
as the train rushes them to Vichy and Auvergne, will 



SANCERRE 131 

have the curiosity to break their journey here on the 
way home. Certainly they would be well rewarded if 
they did. 

1 think it was at Sancerre that I heard the roguish 
folk-song which is still sung in out-of-the-way places 
throughout Berry and the Nivernais : " Oh, j'ai pique 
mon rouge." 

" Oh, j'ai pique mon roug', mon jaune aussi mon blanc : 
Ohj petit vent de galerne doim' moi du beau temps. 
— Allons-eh ! 

Mon pere m'envoi-z a Nantes, 
Y vendre seigle et froment — 

— Allons-eh ! 

A trente sous est mon seigle, 
Un ecu mon froment. 

— Allons-eh ! 

L' premier qui m' les demande 
Cest r fils d'un avocat. 

— Allons-eh ! 

II a bien mis sept ans 

Pour m' compter mon argent — 

— Allons-eh ! 

Tout au bout des sept ans. 
Ma mere est accouchee. 

— Allons-eh I 

Mon per' me dit ' Gar^on, 
' Que faire de cet argent ? ' 

— Allons-eh ! 

' De cet argent, mon pere, 
' Achetons un berceau, 

— Allons-eh ! 

' Un berceau en ivoire, 

' Pour mettr' I'enfant dedans.' 

—Allons-eh ! " 



132 THE LOIRE 

And for a literary interest to Sancerre, does not Villon 
mention it in the " Grand Testament " when writing 
about his sweetheart ? 

" Item m'amourj ma chere Rose, 
Ne luy laisse ne cueur iie foye : 
Elle aymeroit mieulx autre chose, 
Combien qu'elle ait assez monnoye : 
Quoy ? une grande bourse de soye, 
Pleine d'escuz, profonde et large : 
Mais, pendu soit-il, que je soye, 
Qui luy lairra escu ne targe. 

Car elle en a, sans moy, assez. 
Mais de cela, il ne m'en chault ; 
Mes grans deduictz en sent passez ; 
Plus n'en ay le cropion chauld. 
Si m'en desmetz aux hoirs Michault, 
Qui fut nomme le bon fouterre. 
Priez pour luy, faictes ung sault : 
A Saint-Satur gist, soubz Sancerre." 



CHAPTER IX 

COSNE AND BRIARE 

fjlROM the station of Tracy-Sancerre the railway 
-L follows the river closely as far as Cosne, a distance 
of five and a half miles, and from the carriage windows 
one looks across at the long lie de Bannay (which at 
the etiage is barely an island at all) and beyond it, at the 
green woods of Charnie. It is its greenness which — 
after the blue-painted restaurant for American auto- 
mobilists which confronts you outside the station — 
first strikes you on entering Cosne. Never was there a 
more agreeable little town, nor one more sweetly 
lacking in " objects of interest." Imagine a congeries of 
straight roads, of white, respectable houses, of prim 
streets, all made shady and verdant by even rows of trees 
on either side ; with a market-place in the middle of it, and 
the broad, smiling, brown river for one of its boundaries, 
and you have Cosne. There are two inns, the Grand- 
Cerf, where Pope Pius VII stayed when Napoleon 
ordered him to come to France, and the Etoile ; at one 
of them, I think the latter, I was provided with a 
luncheon that was in its Avay as perfect as a poem by 
Theophile Gautier. It was lyrical, inspired, and with 
the exception of a Hebrew bagman in a far corner, who 
limited himself to dry toast and Vichy water, I had 

^Z3 



134 THE LOIRE 

it to myself. That luncheon has perhaps enveloped 
Cosne for me in a golden, dreamy haze ; fond memory 
loves to linger there. I spent a gentle afternoon under 
the luxuriant chestnut trees on the quay, watching the 
island-studded river and listening to the washerwomen 
beating and thudding on their boards. I can see now 
the bluish soapsuds pouring off those boards into the 
stream to poison the fishes, and the women's great 
muscles brought hard by the act of wringing the clothes. 
At Cosne the river gives its first hint of that placidity 
which masks its turbulence through the Orleanais and 
Touraine. There are here no expanses of uncovered 
bed ; the green, tree-shaded lie de Cosne takes the 
place of bare sand-banks, and enables the narrow, 
wobbling suspension bridge to recover its equilibrium 
before the mainland is finally gained. The bridge leads 
across to a long, straight, shady avenue, flanked by 
delightful woods that stretch down to the low river-bed. 
These woods, however, are " Terrains Militaires," and 
you are forbidden to explore. The notice was a reminder 
of the important part played by the Loire, and by the 
Armee de la Loire — ^last hope of France — in the Franco- 
Prussian War. Cosne has still a permanent garrison 
consisting of a regiment of infantry numbering about 
1400 men. 

There are many parts of Cosne that have a quiet 
prettiness and charm, especially where the little river 
Nohain winds its gentle course through the town, 
overhung by tall trees, banked by trim, green lawns or 
little gardens bright with flowers, and spied on by a 
hundred shy windows of back bedrooms. The stream 
comes down from the Donziois and supplies — in less 



COSNE AND BRIARE 



135 



romantic moments — power for the factories which have 
succeeded the forges of which Mme. de Sevigne has left 
us a picture in her " Letters." These forges existed up 
till 1870, and made many of the anchors for the navy. 




Street in Cosne 

but they disappeared when the French Admiralty 
centralised its manufacture of chains and anchors at 
Guerigny. A great iron foundry has also vanished, but 
metal-working is still an important industry at Cosne, 
and a number of workpeople are employed in the 



136 THE LOIRE 

manufacture of files and nails. No one would suspect 
from a short visit that Cosne boasted any industries 
at all, the workshops are so well -concealed, the shady 
central streets of the town so placid. It has not at all 
the air of a manufacturing place ; nothing could be 
more rural than its market, with the garrulous, red-faced 
peasant women in white caps sitting under their 
umbrellas beside their piles of vegetables. I remember 
well the impression of peacefulness and comfort con- 
veyed by the sight of a great wagon loaded with hay 
on the top of which a little soldier, very much undressed, 
lay fast asleep. 

And Cosne is linked for ever in my mind with Alponne 
— king of men. The tent of Alponne was being erected 
at the bottom of the market-place on an open space of 
ground near where the road crosses the Nohain by a low 
bridge ; and pictures of him were placarded all over 
the town. Outside the tent a lady in salmon-coloured 
tights, a slightly tarnished doublet of golden satin, and 
a white powdered wig, beat continuously upon a drum. 
That tent seemed to exhale an atmosphere of suppressed 
excitement ; it stood for wonder and romance, suggested 
the glamour of enormous courage and of those deeds with 
biceps and forearm after which sedentary gentlemen 
dressed in black frock-coats so often yearn in secret. 
On the posters, stuck with republican insouciance on 
the walls of churches and other public institutions, 
were vivid scenes from the life of " L'Homme Hercule," 
showing him engaged in one or other of his labours. 
Here is Alponne — black, waxed moustaches unruffled — 
looking blandly on while men smash rocks upon his 
stomach ; and here again he balances a huge cannon on 



COSNE AND BRIARE 1S7 

his shoulder while an assistant fires it with a flaming 
poker ; finally he is shown in a performance of which 
the true Hercules might well have been proud, he drags 
together two great cart-horses that are being driven 
energetically in opposite directions. When I think that 
it was at Cosne that I came in contact with this mar- 
vellous man, the place, naturally enough, acquires an 
added charm. But all my memories of Cosne are 
delightful. First comes that luncheon at the Hotel 
de I'Etoile ; then the white linen drying under the 
chestnut trees by the river ; the long, frail bridge that 
two soldiers could break up in five minutes, and the 
florid statue in the market-place, erected to the Glory 
of the Republic ; and, finally, the tree-shaded streets ! 
How delightful, always, are those towns that have in 
them " nothing that need delay " the tourist. 

Below Cosne, the next little town is Myennes, a 
smoky place chiefly consisting of brick-fields, whose 
houses stand back from the highway. It is within the 
confines of La Puisaye, a district as distinct in its way 
as the Velay or the Morvan — country of clays and 
potters. At Myennes only bricks and tiles are made, 
but in the north and west of La Puisaye the making of 
pottery is the principal industry. Neuvy-sur-Loire, 
eight miles below Cosne, is a recognised centre for the 
whole industry. Here the pottery manufactured in 
the other towns and villages is brought and warehoused. 
The town is situated at the point where the little river 
Vrille joins the Loire. All along by the banks of the 
Loire at Neuvy is a long line of yards in which the 
pottery from the whole of the district is stored. This 
pottery is sold to dealers or hawkers who own the long, 



138 



THE LOIRE 



narrow boats peculiar to the province of Berry, which 
are called Montluyons. The dealer, when he has filled 




^■^m^^^^-^'^j^Mi 



\i^} 






Neuvy 



his boat with goods, sets off on the Loire or on the 
canals, stopping at all the ports to sell his wares. When 



COSNE AND BRIARE 139 

the boat is empty, he brings it back to Neuvy to load up 
a fresh cargo. 

There is a very fine view of the Loire valley, to the 
right, at Neuvy ; and in the pastures of the surrounding 
districts are to be seen a famous breed of white cattle 
peculiar to the Nivernais. From below Neuvy both 
banks of the Loire are studded with ancient fortified 
towns, very few of which contain now any trace of a 
warlike past. Many are now mere villages without 
any sign of bygone importance ; and the old houses 
made of timber and mud that once filled them have 
disappeared as a result of sieges, fires, or simple old age, 
to be replaced by more solid but characterless struc- 
tures. You would hardly think, for instance, passing 
through the town of Bonny-sur-Loire, that it had its 
place in the great epic of the " Maid of Orleans." Behind 
its ramparts the English garrison thought itself secure, 
but the Maid led the assault and the place fell. No 
doubt the Maid gave thanks after her victory in the 
lovely twelfth-century church dominated by a beautiful 
tower, whose great size is one of the few things left at 
Bonny which seem to indicate its early glories. The 
manufacture of pottery is carried on here, as at most 
other places in the Puisaye. Almost opposite Bonny, 
on the other side of the river, here crossed by a suspen- 
sion bridge, stands on a hill the once fortified town of 
Beaulieu. The outline of the fortifications is easily 
traceable, for a grassy track surrounds the town, where 
once was the old moat or fosse that encircled it, outside 
the ramparts. Nothing now remains, after the Religious 
and other wars, of the original city ; and the country-side 
is not particularly attractive. The chateau of Courcelles- 



14.0 THE LOIRE 

le-Roi, between Beaulieu and Chatillon, is of interest 
chiefly because of two persons celebrated in French 
history who at different epochs owned it : Agnes Sorel 
(1409-50), the famous " Dame de Beaute " who 
exercised so great an influence over Charles VII and 
constantly urged him on against the English ; and 
Marshal Macdonald, born at Sancerre in 1765, who 
covered himself with glory at Wagram in 1809, was 
made Due de Tarente by Napoleon and died at Cour- 
celles in 1840. 

Chatillon, the next town, also on the left bank of the 
river, and once an important stronghold, has a more 
old-world appearance than its neighbours, but has 
nowadays nothing warlike about it, except perhaps its 
site. The older part stands on a kind of spur of hill, 
rising from between two valleys, and is still made 
beautiful by a number of old timber houses with pointed 
roofs. Not so very long ago there were the ruins of 
towers and ramparts and an ancient keep, but these 
have disappeared. In the lower town there are some 
interesting old houses ; and a Nonconformist " temple " 
recalls the fact that the whole of this district was at one 
time given up to dissent. I saw no trace at Chatillon 
of that naughtiness which made Stevenson abuse it so 
roundly ; but then I was not cast into a dungeon. 
Lovers of R. L. S. will remember how evilly he was 
entreated by the Commissary at Chatillon, during his 
" Inland voyage " with Sir William Simpson. The 
" Arethusa," on his own showing, always looked a 
tramp, a person whom the police invariably suspected on 
insufficient grounds. At Chatillon he was arrested and 
cast into prison for having no papers. In despair he 



COSNE AND BRIARE 



141 



insisted that the " Cigarette," who I fancy was ap- 
proaching Chatillon by a different route, should be 
arrested too. Nothing simpler. " At the town entry 
the gendarme culled him like a wayside flower ; and a 
moment later, two persons, in a high state of surprise. 




were confronted in the Commissary's office." The 
" Cigarette " was " a man of an unquestionable and 
unassailable manner, in apple-pie order, dressed, not 
with neatness merely, but elegance, ready with his 
passport at a word, and well supplied with money : a 
man the Commissary would have doffed his hat to on 
chance upon the highway." This respectable indi- 



142 THE LOIRE 

vidual " unblushingly claimed the Arethusa for his com- 
rade " and, as Stevenson's admirers gratefully recall, 
secured his release from the damp and uncomfortable 
cell and caused the Commissary to tear up his charge- 
sheet, " that feast of humour, the unfinished proces- 
verbaU'' But the worst part of the adventure was still 
to follow. It was later on, in the cafe, where after 
dinner they repaired with a gentleman of the neighbour- 
hood, that the final and most horrible scene took place. 
" The cafe was crowded with sportsmen conclamantly 
explaining to each other and the world the smallness of 
their bags. About the centre of the room, the Cigarette 
and the Arethusa sat with their new acquaintance ; 
a trio very well-pleased, for the travellers (after their 
late experience) were greedy of consideration, and their 
sportsman rejoiced in a pair of patient listeners. 
Suddenly the glass door flew open with a crash ; the 
Marechal des logis appeared in the interval, gorgeously 
belted and befrogged, entered without salutation, strode 
up the room with a clang of spurs and weapons, and 
disappeared through a door at the far end. Close at his 
heels followed the Arethusa's gendarme of the after- 
noon, imitating, with a nice shade of difference, the 
imperial bearing of his chief ; only, as he passed, he 
struck lightly with his open hand on the shoulder of his 
late captive, and with that ringing, dramatic utterance 
of which he had the secret — ' Suivez ! ' said he." 

The beer of that cafe — supposing that I visited 
the same one — was, I remember, of an unparalleled 
badness. 

Until the beginning of this century, the Loire at 
Chatillon was the scene of considerable activity. The 



COSNE AND BRIARE 143 

canal from Briare (the Canal du Loing, joining the Loire 
and the Seine) entered the Loire just opposite the town, 
and the barges used to cross the river to the entrance 
of the lateral canal by the aid of a steam tug. Even 
this limited navigation was constantly being interfered 
with and impeded either by the floods or by the lowness 
of the water, so that to avoid the inconvenience, the 
lateral canal was continued along the left bank by a 
branch which is carried across the river to Briare by a 
magnificent pont-canal, the finest of its kind in France. 
This was opened in 1904, and its construction, carried out 
at the same time as the transformation of the Canal du 
Loing, has provided the centre of France as far as 
Roanne with a water-way of the first order, which, 
according to one authority, " deviendra un merveilleux 
outil economique quand la Loire sera rendue de nouveau 
navigable de Briare a I'embouchure." 

Briare is a thriving little town of more than five 
thousand inhabitants, devoted almost entirely to the 
singular occupation of making a kind of imitation 
porcelain button. This industry, to which the place 
owes its prosperity, was introduced by a M. Bapterosses 
(" commemorated by a bust " in the Grande Place), 
an inventor and organiser of genius, whose vast business 
is still carried on by his descendants. 

Below Briare the valley grows still wider, and the river 
is separated from the hills by strips of alluvial ground 
consisting of cultivated fields, pasture lands, and osier- 
beds. There is no considerable village on the right 
bank between Briare and Gien, but several country 
houses ; one of these, on the outskirts of Briare, crowns 
the slopes on which the Bapterosses family has estab- 



144 THE LOIRE 

lished a wonderful model vineyard. On the left bank, 
just before the village of Saint-Brisson, stands a large 
and ancient chateau on the side of a hill — an hexagonal 
grey mass flanked by six high towers — which is the 
home of the illustrious parliamentary family of Seguier. 



CHAPTER X 

GIEN 

rriHERE is nothing whatever about the station at 
-■- Gien to encourage the traveller from Briare to 
alight, unless it be the station-master's warning to 
those voyagers who wish to desert the P.L.M. railway 
for the line of Paris-Orleans. There is a branch line 
from Gien to Orleans which connects these two great 
systems ; it lends a spurious animation to the station, 
which has a settled melancholy from its position in the 
middle of a bare plain, a mile and a quarter from the 
town. There is an omnibus which takes the traveller 
down the dusty and unpleasant highway to the hotel, 
the Hotel de I'Ecu, for forty centimes, and on the way 
you pass, at the entrance of the town, a colossal statue 
of Vercingetorix — reminder that Gien was the Roman 
Genabum. 

Gien had been the place on which my thoughts for 
some weeks past had been centred. It was a stage in 
my journey. Here I was to receive my letters of credit 
and to pick up again those dry-as-dust threads that 
bind every man to his daily bread. At Gien I was 
to hear from such and such people ; to reply to them ; 
to make decisions affecting my return ; to pause and 
take breath. In one way or another Gien had been 
L I4S 



146 THE LOIRE 

constantly in my thoughts : I had great hopes of Gien. 
Baedeker's cryptic utterance I can quote from memory, 
I read it so often : " A town with 8270 inhab., situated 
on the right bank of the Loire, 1| m. to the S. of the 
station, possesses an important faience manufactory. 
The town is commanded by a fine chateau (now the 
Palais de Justice), dating from 1494, beside which is 
a church in the classic style, with a Gothic tower. 
The stained-glass windows of the church and the 
curious modern stations of the Cross in the interior 
may be mentioned." There are few passages in this 
most admirably restrained of authors which are more 
entirely non-committal. Gien came as a complete 
surprise. When I realised that the town was shut in on 
all sides by a flat expanse of cornfields and vineyards, 
intersected by highways ruled with geometrical pre- 
cision, I knew at once that I should never have the 
patience to get away from it by walking. 

The inn was a large square house built of stone, 
newly fitted up, and filled with commis-voyageurs. Just 
opposite my room, across the narrow street, was an 
old stone house with a beautifully carved fa9ade and 
high dormer windows, occupied by a chemist. 

Alas ! with terrible celerity I explored Gien. I 
walked on that first afternoon through all its winding, 
crooked old streets (in most of which are fifteenth- 
century houses with charming carved woodwork and 
curious gables to delight the eye). I stood in the 
middle of the beautiful stone bridge of twelve arches 
which dates from the end of the sixteenth century, 
and admired the way the old town clustered round 
the base of the chateau which Anne of Beaujeu recon- 



GIEN 



147 



structed, and the joyous way it seemed to break into 
a wide smile along the river-bank. Unlike most Loire 



^W^ 



\<^ 



J^^ 






LI, ^^ 

Ml 




Gien 



towns, Gien does not turn its back on the river, but 
faces it and crowds down to it as eagerly as Brighton 



148 THE LOIRE 

faces and crowds to the sea. A long line of pretty 
houses looks across to the faubourg of Berri ; shady 
rows of plane trees run the length of the quay and 
mirror themselves in the swift yet placid stream. 
The washerwomen's boats, like seedy college barges, 
are moored at the base of the steep stone embank- 
ment, which, high though it is, is insufficient to hold 
in the waters of the river during the floods. On the 
bridge, on the walls of the houses facing the Loire, and 
on the wall of the little seventeenth-century church of 
Saint Louis that backs on to it, lines are painted or 
notches cut, each marked with a date — " Crue de 
1856 " ; " Crue de 1864 " — grim reminders of the 
sleeping enemy's power. 

Several times before the sacred hour of dinner, I 
climbed the steep knoll on which the fantastic, turreted 
chateau is situated, with the parish church of St. 
Pierre by its side. The chateau is indeed a jewel, 
built of mellowed bricks of reddish purple arranged 
in elaborate geometrical patterns alternating with 
carved stone. With its steep roofs, gables, and tur- 
rets twisting up to a slim blue point, the outlines of 
the building are fairy -like. Eastern almost ; especially 
at night, when they are all marked out and accentuated 
by the light of the moon. In front of the church 
adjoining is a little plateau of rich green grass, set 
pleasantly with seats and all shut in by a thick circle 
of dark towering magnificent trees— at midday the 
coolest, greenest place imaginable. I saw little in the 
plain stucco nave ending in a rounded apse to merit 
the adjective " classical." Beyond a cheap nastiness 
it has no character at all. The outside walls are stained 



GIEN 149 

with damp where the dense trees have kept off the 
sun ; even the defiant repubhcan motto, " Liberte, 
Egalite, Fraternite," painted upon them is becoming 
rapidly illegible. Inside was a forest of tawdry blue- 
and-white banners, interspersed with the tricolor, 
which still remained up in honour of St. Jeanne d'Arc, 
whose festival had been celebrated some weeks before. 
" Si vous voulez un miracle — Menez-moi a Orleans," 
was the legend on quite a dozen banners, embroidered 
in white on a blue ground. Silvered statues of the 
Maid in full armour gleamed from every unoccupied 
corner of the church, whose atmosphere was in a state 
of symbolic warfare — the smell of stale humanity 
fighting with the smell of stale incense. The beautiful 
Gothic tower of this church, which tapers to a pointed 
roof of slate, is luckily all of it that the trees allow to 
appear from any distance away. 

Gien certainly compresses its attractions into a narrow 
compass ; while, as I have said, its surroundings simply 
defy exploration. It is emphatically a place to spend 
an hour in, two hours, and then pass on. I realised 
this very soon ; and my exploration over, I decided 
to collect my letters from the post office and pass 
on to Sully or Chateauneuf that very night. The 
post office at Gien is new, and in the " imposing " 
style beloved of the French Government building. 
It is of gleaming white stone, and to get in you 
have to put your shoulder against the heavy door 
and push with all your might against the self-closing 
apparatus. I squeezed in and presented myself before 
a very official young woman in a black overall with 
marvellous cuff -protectors. She had a face that can 



150 THE LOIRE 

only be described as bleak. I presented my card and 
an addressed envelope and made my request for my 
letters, doubtless with some assurance, for I concluded 
they must have waited for at least a week. She swung 
the revolving pigeon-hole languidly round and made a 
cursory examination among the G's, and yes, I think 
I detected a faint gleam of malice in the fish-like eye 
behind the gold-rimmed pince-nez as she remarked im- 
passively : "II n'y a rien ! " I should have much en- 
joyed tearing down the wire cage that protected her 
and giving that young woman a severe shaking ; instead, 
I sought a Pernod in the moth-bitten " Grand Cafe du 
Loiret " — most comfortless and dismal of its kind. So 
I should have to spend the night in the place, after 
all ! I may as well state at once that — unhappy 
prisoner awaiting ransom at the Hotel de I'Ecu — I 
spent a week in Gien. The town huddles low and airless 
by the river, and this was the hottest week in the 
whole of an exceptionally hot year. How I bore it 
I do not know. Long before the arrival of the regis- 
tered letter which brought me my release, I felt like the 
oldest inhabitant. Commis-voyageurs by the dozen 
came and went. One day a party of English people 
arrived in a touring car, and dined and slept the night 
in the hotel. How many weeks was it since I had 
heard an English voice, or seen an English face ! I 
found myself sending coy glances in their direction 
during dinner, but not liking (I suppose) my face, they 
did not wish me so much as a good evening or good 
morning. Our national obliviousness of others — care- 
fully cultivated and jealously guarded — hardly showed 
itself to me then, poor prisoner at Gien, in its most 






^^t^.Sec 



r^.^! 



'ti #y 



I ^. 




The Bridge, Gien. 



GIEN 151 

attractive light. The bagman, M. Raimond, who was 
my neighbour at dinner that evening, could not under- 
stand at all why we did not immediately fraternise, 
regarded me with some suspicion indeed, and related 
numerous stories of cordial rencounters between French- 
men in foreign parts. Possibly out of compassion for 
my now obvious melancholy, he took me for a walk 
after dinner, the good M. Raimond. While the rich 
greens and the soft rosy tints of sunset lingered in the 
sky we sat on the stone parapet above the river close 
to the bridge. The fronts of the houses on the opposite 
bank were become dark and their details indistinguish- 
able, though the roofs and chimneys were strongly 
outlined against the evening sky. One house alone, 
tall and white, next to the corner house, on the 
high road just over the bridge, gleamed out clearly 
from among the others, distinct in every detail. " You 
see that white house," said my companion. " It is 
riddled with Prussian bullets. The whole of a night 
they kept up the firing." His eye flashed, he put 
up an imaginary rifle to his shoulder, took cover be- 
hind the parapet, and fired shot after shot. " Ah, we 
could crush them now ! " he muttered through clenched 
teeth. " They are afraid of us." M. Raimond pre- 
sented himself suddenly in a new light ; here was a 
man among men, a bagman with a soul above the 
carded wool and knitting-needles in which he "travelled." 
The apex of the bridge, I had noticed, did not seem to 
be in the middle, a fact which spoilt its symmetry when 
viewed from the quay. That also, I learned, was a 
result of the Prussian invasion. The bridge had been 
blown up in 1870, and patched together thus roughly. 



152 THE LOIRE 

We became intimate, M. Raimond and I, with a swift- 
ness a little dizzying. He showed me a photograph of 
his wife and daughter who resided at Bourges ; ex- 
plaining meanwhile that he could not for their sakes 
contemplate certain dissipations that I, indeed, was 
far from suggesting. He proceeded to further con- 
fidences. He had been born at Gien, but had not been 
in his native place for twenty-six years. He would 
show me, he said, the house where he was born. We 
set off down the long street that runs parallel with the 
river to the far end of the town, nearly as far as the 
large faience factory that is its one industry. It is quite 
a different place, the Gien of the end near the factory, 
from the old town nestling round the chateau ; dirtier 
and more vital. We stopped in front of a small 
baker's shop, which M. Raimond indicated with pardon- 
able pride. 

" It was in this little house that I first saw the light," 
he remarked, with a depth of emotion concentrated in 
the simple sentence. I took off my hat ; it seemed the 
natural thing to do. Then we went in, invited down a 
narrow passage to the back room by the baker, of ample 
proportions, whose bulging red neck perspired over a 
collarless shirt. Inside the room, which was plainly 
furnished with a deal table and " kitchen " chairs, and 
adorned with a few coloured almanacks on the walls, 
sat the baker's wife, several obvious aunts, and various 
kinds of children of both sexes. Space was made for us 
round the table ; we shook hands a great deal and 
complimented one another about everything that 
occurred to us. There were two wicked urchins of about 
twelve and fourteen years old, dresged in long bjack 



GIEN 153 

overalls caught in at the waist with a leather belt, and a 
little girl, hated by her mother, who was disfigured 
by some skin disease. The aunts, who were very fat, 
seemed to bulge blackly over the table ; they breathed 
stertorously, and had unfathomable memories for 
relationships. After M. Raimond had displayed the 
photographs of his wife and daughter, the baker begged 
us to " take something " : a drop of comfort. 

" Alas ! but not for me," said the fattest aunt, with 
one little beady eye on the gin bottle ; "I suffer so 
much with my stomach." A roaring sound came at 
slow intervals from the deepest abysses of the baker's 
vast frame as he reached down a bottle labelled " Marc " 
and passed round the petits verres. The suffering aunt 
he helped first and most liberally, roaring all the time 
within himself. Chariot and Auguste had theirs diluted, 
and mitigated by a lump of sugar. With the usual 
contempt of the Englishman for the potency of foreign 
drinks, I drank mine neat, with the others. I drank 
and wept. I do not know of what " Marc " is manu- 
factured — it is white, like gin, and appeared to be a 
sort of bastard brandy — but I trust that I may never 
encounter it again. The back of my gullet smarts now 
at the mere memory. 

Leaving the baker and his children and his women- 
folk grouped round their " Marc," their perspiring 
faces lit fitfully by the light of a candle stuck in a 
green glass bottle that stood in the middle of the table, 
M. Raimond and I made the party the most cordial 
adieux, and went out into the summer night to continue 
our pilgrimage. I was shocked to see that M. Raimond's 
equilibrium was not perfect. He was in the mood, 



154 THE LOIRE 

evidently, to " make a night of it," and led me into 
the cafe of a little inn, the Hotel du Puy-de-D6me 
in the rue Thiers, kept by one Henric-Bradu. The 
inside was perfectly bare and perfectly clean. In one 
corner two blue-bloused peasants sat dozing in front 
of their cider pots ; at the other end of the room, with 
a clean deal trestle table in front of them, sat Madame 
Henric-Bradu, elegant and amiable, her spouse, and 
a pleasant journalist from Orleans who was staying 
in the house. The patron was in his shirt-sleeves, an 
ugly yet attractive man with a yellow wrinkled face, 
keen grey eyes, and iron-grey hair. He was getting 
fat, but his arms under the sleeves of his dirty shirt 
looked muscular, and he had the shoulders of a giant. 
He drank in a way rare among Frenchmen, enormously 
yet without being at all affected. Both he and his 
wife and the French journalist were admirable talkers, 
delightful to listen to, going lightly from subject to 
subject, never tedious nor dull. The conversation 
became most serious when the Loire was mentioned. 
The Loire drowns too many children and grown people 
every year, the patron told me, for the townsfolk of 
Gien to take it lightly. 

" I was a great swimmer when I was young," he 
continued, " and I know. I tell you the Loire is a 
traitor. It is like a woman, capricious. Its sand-banks 
move and change perpetually ; one day, in a certain 
spot, the sand is firm and hard and will bear your 
weight, the next day if you trust yourself on the very 
same spot you will go in up to your neck. And in 
many places there are tourbillons — under the bridge, 
for instance. These drag the strongest swimmer down 



GIEN 



155 



like a log and carry him under water sometimes for 
fifty metres. I tell you the Loire is a traitor. As for 
what it does in the winter, it is terrific. You have 
seen the marks of the crues on the walls of the houses, 
down on the Quai ! " He illustrated his account of 
the river's iniquities with harrowing stories of drowned 
children, of the desperate but unavailing struggles of 




A street in Gien 

strong swimmers. But I could see he was proud of this 
monster at the doorstep ; loved it even for its villainies. 
Before I went, Madame Henric-Bradu showed me her 
bedrooms, and very clean and comfortable they were ; 
inexpensive too ; and as for her cookery, was she not 
renowned for it ? If you must stay at Gien at all, and 
value solid comfort more than appearances, you could 



156 THE LOIRE 

not, I am sure, do better than put up at the Hotel du 
Puy-de-D6me. 

As I was preparing to go the talk turned suddenly 
to wines. Warming to his subject, the patron described 
to me the extraordinary excellence of Pouilly, a white 
wine of the Loire made from the grapes grown near 
the little town above Sancerre that I remembered so 
well. He had some of great age, he told me, in his 
cellar ; he had in Paris paid fifteen francs for the very 
same wine. A bottle was not to be resisted, and over 
it our friendship was cemented. Its price was exactly 
a franc and a half, and its golden luxuriance, its 
smoothness and delicacy, baffle attempts at description. 
The charm of a good wine, like the charm of good 
poetry, does it not lie in the fact that it is indefinable ? 
It was almost the only good thing, that unforgettable 
bottle of Pouilly, that Gien had to offer as a peace- 
offering after keeping me prisoner for a week, and it was 
a tragedy that I only made the acquaintance of the 
Hotel du Puy-de-D6me on the night before my de- 
parture. The next morning the relieving letter arrived, 
and I set off by the first available train. My last memory 
of Gien is of a dog-cart race down the long highway 
from the station to the town. Two of these little carts, 
one a baker's, driven by a stout woman who seemed at 
least twice as wide as the seat she sat on, the other 
a milkman's with two little boys in charge, set off 
down the hill at a furious pace, the old woman nearly 
suffocated with laughter. The carts were drawn by 
big dogs with open mouths and slavering tongues — a 
breed very common in Gien and throughout Beauce, 
Sologne, and the Orleanais — and swayed giddily as they 
turned the corner and vanished out of my sight. 



CHAPTER XI 

FROM GIEN TO ORLEANS 

WITHIN the triangle made by the three towns of 
Gien, Argent, and Sully, lie some of the barest 
and most dismal expanses of a bare and dismal region 
— Sologne. The Loire winds through the top of the 
triangle, and the best way to get from Gien to Sully is 
by canoe, if you have one with you. Sully is a pleasant 
town, with not quite three thousand inhabitants, on 
the left bank of the Loire, facing Saint-Pere, a village 
surrounded by luxuriant market -gardens. It preserves, 
still, many old houses in its narrow streets, but its 
interest centres chiefly in the magnificent chateau 
erected by Henri IV's minister, the great Sully, in 1602. 
Here he retired after the King's assassination and spent 
the last years of his life. The castle is right down by 
the Loire, set in the midst of an artificial lake whose 
waters are borrowed from the river. It is flanked by 
four great feudal towers, and the building still retains 
an appearance of considerable splendour. In one of the 
courts is a statue of Sully. It was at this castle that 
Sully wrote his " Economies Royales." He had it printed 
in one of the towers, which was transformed for the 
purpose into a printing works. The chateau is a " monu- 
ment historique " ; it is more worth visiting than many 
of the Loire chateaux that enjoy a far greater celebrity. 

157 



158 THE LOIRE 

There are several places of interest near this town 
which are practically inaccessible from anywhere by 
rail. There is a good cycling road, however, from 
Sully, through St. Benoit, Germigny-des-Pres and 
Chateauneuf — all places of the greatest interest — to 
Orleans. St. Benoit-sur-Loire is reached soon after 
getting clear of Saint-P^re, its great church — perhaps 
the finest Romanesque church in France — looming up 
impressively in front of you. A round moat, almost the 
only remains of the old defences of the town, survives 
in places to indicate the extent of what must have been 
one of the most populous cities of France in the Middle 
Ages. There are said to have been twelve or fifteen 
thousand people living round its famous abbey, which 
was then one of the most thronged religious centres in 
the country. Its schools are said to have numbered five 
thousand pupils. Now, St. Benoit has only about five 
hundred inhabitants, and the shrunken village has in 
its turn an appearance of desertion. The monastery, 
dating from 620, was pillaged and destroyed by the 
Huguenots under Conde in 1562, and nothing of its past 
splendour now remains except the church. This vast 
building seems to gain an added magnificence from its 
lonely situation, dominating a half-deserted village, an 
undistinguished country-side, and a broad river, on 
which the navigation has dwindled almost to nothing. 
The greater part of the structure was built between 
1026 and 1218. It has two sets of transepts, with a 
square central tower rising between them. The western 
porch (or narthex) is particularly beautiful. It is two 
stories high and divided into a nave and aisles of 
three bays each, with columns whose capitals, richly 



FROM GIEN TO ORLEANS 



159 



carved, are the most remarkable of their kind and date 
in France. The subjects, taken from the Apocalypse or 
from Genesis, are rendered with a great deal of spirit. 







TjifS 






-^■Ji/ 



The Chateau of Sully 

Umbert, who has inscribed his name on one of the 
capitals, is perhaps responsible for them all. The story 
above the aisles containing these columns, consists of a 



160 THE LOIRE 

large hall or chapel. There used to be a further story, 
over this, which was crenellated and crowned by a spire, 
but it was destroyed in 1527. The transepts have no 
doors, but a side entrance, on the north side of the nave, 
is a fine example of thirteenth-century architecture. 
Above this door is a representation of the removal of 
the relics of St. Benoit from Monte Cassino to the 
monastery. The door is flanked by six great statues, 
now mutilated. Of these a French authority gives a 
detailed description : " Six grandes statues horrible - 
ment mutilees se dressent en cariatides de chaque 
cote de la bale, accolees aux colonnes qui soutien- 
nent la voussure ; on reconnait a droite Abraham 
tenant d'une main la glaive du sacrifice, tandis que 
I'autre main est posee sur la tete d'Isaac debout devant 
lui ; un ange retient son bras. Vis-a-vis est David avec 
sa harpe ; les autres personnages sont sans attributs 
. . ." The principal transept is separated by six 
arcades forming the choir, from the secondary transept. 
In the first transept, under the central tower, is the 
tomb of Philippe I (le Bel), who died in 1108 — a 
recumbent statue of the King reposing on four lions. 
The choir stalls, which date from 1413, are extremely 
beautiful. Painful excrescences, due to modern bad 
taste, the church has in plenty— the decorations of the 
organ for instance — but they are powerless to spoil the 
general purity of its effect. The sacristy contains 
several treasures, including some carved woodwork 
given by Cardinal Richelieu, the Rosary of Anne of 
Austria, and many valuable reliquaries. A crypt dating 
from the beginning of the eleventh century extends 
under the choir and contains the heart of St. Benoit, 



t 



/ 




M 



162 THE LOIRE 

enclosed in a magnificent modern reliquary in the 
Romanesque style, the stone tomb of an abbot of 
the seventh century and a carved wooden altar given 
by Richelieu. 

The church of Germigny-des-Pres, a small village of 
about five hundred inhabitants three miles to the 
north-west, is hardly less elaborate than the church of 
St. Benoit, though nowadays far less interesting. For 
students of architecture and learned pundits it is still, 
however, a place of pilgrimage ; for imaginative people 
the lust of French restorers has turned it merely into a 
public building. The original church was built in 806 
by Theodolphus, bishop of Orleans, the friend of 
Charlemagne and one of the shining lights of the Dark 
Ages. After an existence of a thousand years, wars, 
the ravages of the Loire and the deflowering hand of 
time had brought it to such a condition that a collapse 
of the structure seemed inevitable. A restoration was 
decided upon in 1868, a ruthless " restoration " which 
amounted in reality to a complete rebuilding. With the 
exception of the mosaics which have made the work of 
Theodolphus celebrated, and a number of carved 
finials and old stonework, everything is new. The 
" soul " is gone out of the building, just as the soul of 
Tattershall Castle would escape if that venerable tower 
were to be taken down and re-erected in Salt Lake City. 
To get an idea of what the original church was like it is 
necessary to refer to writers who, like Ardouin-Dumazet, 
can remember it. He makes an interesting comparison 
between the two buildings, the " restored " and the 
original : " Le precieux temple etait bien plus exigu 
que I'eglise actuelle ; c'etait un carre ayant une abside 



FROM GIEN TO ORLEANS 163 

sur chaque face. Dans la reconstruction, im des cdt6s 
a disparu pour faire place a une nef qui accroit I'etendue 
de I'eglise et lui permet d'abriter la foule des fideles. 
Les lignes architecturales sont trop nettes et froides ; 
ceux qui ont connu la basilique d'autrefois, avec ses 
incorrections naives, ne retrouvent plus le charme du 
venerable monument. Cependant le plan ancien a ete 
restitue avec tant de scrupule, que I'impression du 
visiteur reste profonde. En depit de ceux qui n'estiment 
un monument que si le temps a mordu sur lui, ronge ses 
pierres, emousse ses saillies, I'eglise de Germigny-des- 
Pres est une merveille." 

For myself I must confess a hatred of restorers, which 
made me leave Germigny without regret, for the little 
town of Chateauneuf, about three miles farther, along 
a road almost lined with windmills. Chateauneuf, 
though a town of only about 3500 inhabitants, is 
something of a centre for the surrounding country, 
boasts a not unimportant factory for the production 
(oddly enough) of those ponis - transbordeurs which 
are to be seen at Marseilles, Rouen, Nantes, and 
other places, and has besides an industry in the 
making of the cheeses called locally Olivets. Its vines 
are numerous, though they have suffered from the 
phylloxera, and recourse has had to be made to American 
plants. At Chateauneuf, in the reign of Louis XV, one 
of the family of Phelypeaux de la Vrilliere built a 
grandiose chateau, whose ruins still retain an imposing 
appearance, while the moats and terraces show how 
spacious the palace must have been. Some kitchens 
and stables, four small pavilions, and an octagonal 
rotunda, surmounted by a cupola, are all that actually 



164 THE LOIRE 

remain in the midst of the great park ; but the imagina- 
tive eye can do a good deal of reconstruction with 
the help of these. In the church is a marble statue of 
great dignity and elegance, but a little pompous and 
lacking in humour, dedicated to the first of the Phely- 
peaux, Marquis of La Vrilliere, who was a Secretary 
of State under Louis XIV and died in 1681. The 
contrast between realism and allegory in the statuary 
of the tomb is diverting. The minister in the peruke, 
cloak, and mantle of court dress is invited by an angel 
to mount towards heaven ; the sentimental expression 
on his face seems to show either a genuine desire for the 
wings of a dove, or else merely a polite inability to 
acquiesce. 

After leaving Chateauneuf I made for Jargeau, on 
the left bank of the river, the next town on my journey 
to Orleans, reached through the village of St. Denis-de- 
I'Hotel, by turning southwards and crossing a long 
bridge. From the higher part of St. Denis-de-l'Hotel 
the traveller is rewarded for his perseverance with a 
wonderful, awe-inspiring view. There in front is the 
river with its wide and naked expanses of sand, the 
suspension bridge, severe in outline, supported on 
massive round pillars, and the town of Jargeau with its 
reddish roofs clustering round its church tower. Beyond 
stretches almost without limit the great plain of the 
Loire valley, from the midst of which weather-beaten 
church towers here and there raise their heads. And as 
far as one can see the valley is studded with windmills, 
the turning of whose great, sweeping wings seems to 
give an odd impression of silence to the landscape. 
As you approach Jargeau, across the suspension bridge^ 



FROM GIEN TO ORLEANS 165 

it seems to nestle and take shelter behind the high wall 
of a digue that rises up sheer from the river's sandy bed. 

The view from the bridge up and down the river has a 
kind of melancholy, half -savage grandeur at low water ; 
in flood times the scene must be stupendous. 

Jargeau's chief claim to celebrity lies in its capture 
from the English (and the Earl of Suffolk with it) by 
Jeanne d'Arc on May 22nd, 1429, a few weeks after her 
miraculous victory at Orleans. She was wounded in 
the engagement, and a bronze statue commemorating 
the incident adorns the place du Martroi, to which the 
traveller is conducted from the bridge on his entry into 
the town, by the boulevard Jeanne d'Arc. The church, 
in which no doubt the Maid gave thanks after her 
victory, dates back, in its oldest parts, to the Roman- 
esque epoch ; successive transformations have greatly 
disfigured it from the architectural point of view, and the 
whole building is crushed by the heavy tower. 

Jargeau is the centre of an odd but charming industry, 
namely the making of artificial flowers. About two 
hundred and fifty women and girls are occupied in it, 
some of whom come in every morning from Chateauneuf . 
A flower-maker could hardly help singing at her work 
and away from it ; and a woman I heard singing on her 
road, as I left the little town in the late afternoon to make 
for Orleans, was doubtless one of these immigrants from 
Chateauneuf, or perhaps a stranger born still farther 
away : for the song she sang is found more commonly 
in the department of Indret. 

" Voila ma journe'e faite^ 

Je vais me pvomener, voyez ! 

Dans mon cliemin remontre 
Un' jeuii' fille a mon gre ; 



166 THE LOIRE 

La prends par sa main blanche, 
Je la mene a dauser. 

Quand elle fut daus la danse, 
Eir s'est mise S pleurer. 

J'ai ma mere malade 

II faut qu' je vais la soigner. 

Quand ell' n' s'ra plus malade 
Je revieudrai danser. 

Et moi, gai'^on honnete 
Je la laissai aller. 

Quand elP fut dans la plaine, 
Ell' s'est mise a chanter. 

Tais-toi, petite sotte, 
Je saurai t'attraper." 

From Jargeau to Orleans is a distance of eleven and a 
half miles, along a level dusty road. They were not 
particularly interesting miles, and I was overjoyed 
when in the clear evening light I saw the twin towers of 
the cathedral looming high over the plain. 



CHAPTER XII 

ORLEANS 

A T a first inspection Orleans strikes one as being 
-^^^ provincial and dull in an almost English sense. 
The long new boulevard from the imposing terminus 
of the Paris-Orleans railway, which cuts through the 
middle of a broad promenade shaded by giant elms, the 
boulevard Alexandre Martin, and leads down to the 
place du Martroi, is bare and glaring. Indeed, in none 
of the central streets of Orleans, nor in the place du 
Martroi, is there a single tree. The houses are all in a 
terribly efficient state of repair, neither old nor new, 
with even rows of shuttered windows, shiny doors, and 
sheer, characterless fronts. I don't believe the sun is 
so merciless in any city in France as it is at Orleans. 
Round the place du Martroi are a number of cafes (of 
which the finest is La Rotonde), and outside these cafes 
sit groups of black-coated men, immobile ; each group 
gazing across the square, at the group opposite. In 
the middle of the square, by the pretentious bronze 
statue of the Maid of Orleans on horseback, the white 
tramcars pass and repass, and a line of fiacres wait 
motionless in the sun for fares that seem never to 
present themselves. Nothing could be more hopelessly 
respectable than this place du Martroi ; it is so respect- 

167 



168 THE LOIRE 

able that one finds it almost impossible to realise that 
the blood of Frenchmen was running on this very spot 
just over forty years ago — well within the memory of 
all the respectable gentlemen with grey beards who 
are sitting round it, drinking their cafe-cognacs and 
reading the " Petit Parisien." On October 11th, 1870, 
the to^\'n was captured by the Germans under Yon der 
Tann. On that day " the exulting music of the life- 
guards resounded through the streets ; on the Martroi 
Square, in front of the Statue of La Pucelle on horse- 
back, blazed the bivouac-fires of the troops, throwing a 
flickering light alternately illuminating and again hiding 
in shadows the houses, that appeared to have been 
forsaken by their inhabitants." A month later the 
town was recaptured by the Armee de la Loire — last 
hope of the French — but the Germans occupied it a 
second time on the 5th of December. The horrors of the 
Franco-German War seem nowadays like an evil dream ; 
there is nothing save the broken bridges of the Loire 
and a sudden fierceness of the eye in apparently peaceful 
men when the subject is touched on, to recall them — 
so prosperous, smiling, and powerful has the country 
once more become. 

My first impressions, then, of Orleans were of the 
m.ost fiery and unmitigated pavements, the most 
respectable, clean, well-cared -for streets, belonging to 
the dullest provincial town on the face of the earth. 
But first impressions — especially of towns — very often 
need correction. It was a pleasure, for instance, 
to meet outside the Cafe de la Rotonde, the amiable 
journalist whose acquaintance I had made at the Hotel 
du Puy-de-D6me at Gien. He seemed to have an 



ORLEANS 169 

Oriental disregard for time ; and insisted on putting 
himself entirely at my disposal for the day, taking me 
round to half a dozen different newspaper offices. At 
one of them, the office of the " Progres du Loiret," I 
was introduced to a gentleman in a holland coat with a 
curling black beard, black eyes, and a wax-pale face 
who smoked inrmmerable cigarettes — the Editor-in- 
Chief. Then there was M. Edmond Schneider, most 
charming of news editors ; and, in another office, a 
gentleman whose zebra-like knickerbockers, bright 
brown boots, and unbounded amiability proclaimed 
him a devotee of sport. The particular kind of sport 
in which he indulged was canoeing. He was a leading 
authority on the subject of boating on the Loire, knew 
every whirlpool and shallow, every dangerous spot, and 
every safe bathing-place and camping-ground between 
Orleans and Nantes ; while the courtesy with which he 
put the result of his experience at the disposition of a 
complete stranger endeared him at once. Provided as 
I now was with two or three acquaintances to nod to or 
drink an aperitif with, Orleans seemed in a sense to 
grow more human. 

The celebrations in connection with the Fete de 
Jeanne d'Arc, which begins every year on May 8th and 
is one of the most brilliant of its kind in France — it has 
only twice been interrupted since its inception, viz. 
during the Wars of Religion of the sixteenth century, 
and in the days of the Revolution, from 1792 to 1804 
— had not long been over at the time of my visit. 
Luckily for me, the great fair that forms part of them, 
was still in full swing throughout the whole length of 
the great boulevard Alexandre Martin, under its dark, 



170 THE LOIRE 

double avenue of trees. A race-meeting was held on 
the first Sunday of my visit, in the race-course on the 
left bank of the river in the faubourg St. Marceau, and 
brought together a fashionable crowd that was most 
interesting to watch. The women were beautifully 
dressed ; indeed all the women that I noticed in Orleans 
seemed to be dressed like Parisians. As M. Schneider 
pointed out to me, not only is Orleans but two hours 
from Paris, but it remains still the great centre for the 
old French nobility, the most aristocratic town in 
France. 

In exploring the " sights " of Orleans I wasted the 
whole of one stifling afternoon, which might more 
profitably have been passed in bed, drinking an iced 
sirop behind the cool Venetian blinds. I started first 
along the wide, frigid rue Jeanne d'Arc to the cathedral. 
Surely the western fafade of this building is one of 
the saddest architectural " failures " that were ever 
perpetrated ! One Gabriel, an architect of Louis XV's 
reign, was responsible for this bastard Gothic eyesore 
which has of all things a Moorish touch, in the narrow 
pointed doorways. Between the two displeasing, three- 
storied towers you can see the central spire, rebuilt in 
1859. The original Gothic church, the third church on 
the same site, was begun in 1287 by Bishop Gilles de 
Patay and burnt by the Huguenots in 1567, before it was 
quite finished. Eleven chapels of the apse and the side 
walls of the choir, the most interesting parts of the 
present building, were preserved from the flames. The 
reconstruction of the church was begun by Henri IV 
in 1601 and finally completed after M. Gabriel had 
done his worst, in the blessed year 1829. It is certainly 



ORLEANS 



171 



better inside than out ; and the effect of the tall pillars 
without capitals and the great transept windows is im- 




Orleans 



pressive^while some of the glass is good. The pictures 
and works of art in the cathedral are neither numerous 
nor valuable. The organ-case is interesting as having 



172 THE LOIRE 

come from the abbey of St. Benoit ; while some 
magnificent rock-crystal lustres hung originally in the 
huge eighteenth-century mansion of the Phelypeaux, 
whose ruins I visited at Chateauneuf. 

I did not climb either of the two towers, for I could 
not find an official to open the door for me. Perhaps if I 
had I should have been rewarded with the same interest- 
ing view, modernised in its details, that Young describes 
in his " Travels." " From the steeple of the cathedral 
at Orleans," he writes, " the prospect is very fine. The 
town large, and its suburbs, of single streets, extend 
near a league. The vast range of country, that spreads 
on every side, is an unbounded plain, through which 
the magnificent Loire bends his stately way in sight for 
fourteen leagues ; the whole scattered with rich 
meadows, vineyards, gardens, and forests. The popula- 
tion must be very great, for, besides the city, which 
contains near 40,000 people, the number of smaller 
towns and villages strewed thickly over the plain is 
such as to render the whole scene animated." 

"Animated" the Orleanais may have seemed to Young 
with his special agricultural interests. For myself I could 
see little animation or beauty in it, save on the banks 
of the Loire or its affluents. As M. Robida has well 
said : " Dans cet Orleanais, preface de la Touraine, ce 
qui est beau surtout c'est le val de la Loire entre deux 
files de coteaux, ce couloir au fond duquel, sur un lit 
sablonneux, parseme d'iles sans nombre, au bruisse- 
ment des files de peupliers, coule le fleuve, aujourd'hui 
lent et tranquille, somnolent parmi bancs de sable et 
ilots broussailleux, et pourtant, si de trop cojaieuses 
averses ont arrose son bassin, bientot tout different. 



ORLEANS 173 

sombre et fougueux, roulant rapidement des eaux 
troublees. . . . Derriere ces vastes paysages riverains 
aux lignes nobles et amples, derriere ces coteaux 
charmants, il y a la Sologne, terre melancholique, plate 
et trop mouillee, qui semble a la moindre pluie, avec 
toutes ses ornieres chargees en ruisseaux, emerger a 
peine d'une deluge." 

Close to the cathedral at the northern corner of the 
place Sainte Croix is the Mairie or Hotel de Ville, a 
Renaissance structure of brick and stone, built origin 
ally in 1530 for Jacques Groslot, Seigneur de File, and 
enlarged and restored in 1850-4. It was formerly a 
Royal residence ; and here in 1560 died Francis II in 
the arms of his queen, Mary Stuart. Most of the old 
houses still remaining in Orleans are in a side street 
called the rue du Tabour, a continuation of the rue 
des Cannes which joins it to the rue Royale. One of the 
finest of them, however, which is very seldom visited, is 
number 41 in the rue du Poirier, a street on the other side 
of the rue Royale, near the markets. The Musee Jeanne 
d'Arc is housed in a beautiful fifteenth-century dwelling 
in the rue du Tabour, known, entirely without justifica- 
tion, as the Maison d'Agnes Sorel ; and farther down 
in the street is the Maison de I'Annonciade, the house 
in which Jacques Bouchier, treasurer to the Due 
d'Orleans, received Jeanne when she raised the siege 
and finally drove the English out of the town on May 
7th and 8th, 1429. The actual room she occupied no 
longer exists, as it was pulled down and rebuilt in 1580. 
The story of how the Maid, after visiting Charles VII at 
Chinon, rode, clad in her white armour, fearlessly, at 
the head of her little troop, and filled the English with 



174 THE LOIRE 

terror, never grows stale, and one cannot wonder at its 
enduring hold on the popular iniaginalion. The result 
nowadays seems to be a teeming croj) ol' bad statues ; 
three centuries ago patriotism displayed itself more 
naturally in innumerable songs and ballads, of which 
the following — "rceueillie en 1645 a Origins" — is a good 
example : 

" A la (louco pricro 
l)oiit lo )oi DiiMi prla 
Nous viiit jmuu' bcM-goro, 
Qui i>our nous j>uerroya ; 
I'ar divine conduite 
Aui-lais taut fort greva 
Que tous los niit en fuile, 
VA le siege leva. 

( hantons done tous ensemble, 
l']t nous rejouissons ; 
C'est du iiiieux ce nie semble 
Que faire nous porissions. 
Bien nous devons louer IMeu, 
Qui iu>s grands eiuiemis 
A cluisse do ce lieu, 
Kt liors de France mis." 

Near the rue du Tabour is another Renaissance 
house, flanked by two pointed turrets, the Hotel Cabut, 
which is usually known, quite wrongly, as the Maison 
de Diane de Poitiers. It dates from 1540 and contains 
now the Mus(5e Historique. There arc I believe man}'^ 
other individual houses of interest, but on this hot 
afternoon I did not hunt for them. I ended up my 
wanderings with a visit to the Muscle de Peinture, housed 
in the rambling ancien Hotel dc J^iUe built between 
1449 and 1498, which, though mutilated, is a precious 
stone building in whose architecture the ogival style is 



ORLEANS 175 

intimately blended with that of the Renaissanee. Its 
tower, which dates from 1453, contains two bells of 
about the same period, and a hoiirdon of 1574. The old 
house, with its dark rooms and curious winding stair- 
cases, is far moi'e interesting than the collection of 
])ictures it encloses. This is one of the most mediocre 
that I have ever come across in France ; and the 
donations from the State have been particularly cruel. 
Luckily many of the rooms are so dark that you can- 
not examine their contents very closely. A Fragonard, 
a Lancret, and some interesting drawings of chateaux 
on the Loire are the only things in the gallery that 
I remember with any pleasure. 

No ; it must be confessed that the " sights " of 
Or\6aT\H do not contrive to stir the imagination ; nor 
does the presence of so many ancient houses detract 
from the city's prosperous " suburban " air Avhieh at 
first one finds so tedious. The nicest thing al)out the 
town is the presence of the Loire, though the river, just 
in front of the quays, has been carefully partitioned off 
by breakwaters in a way that destroys its pietiiresque- 
ness. Still the panorama of the three bridges is remark- 
ably fine, and as incidents in a landscape the cathedral's 
twin towers look quite passable imder the extraordin- 
arily clear sky. From any of the bridges or from the 
quays of the left bank in the suburb of St. Mareeau, 
Orleans presents an imjjosing enough appearance. The 
town " spreads along the right bank of the Loire, border- 
ing the stream with a regular line of quays with large 
houses, above which can be discerned on the extreme 
right the high nave of the church of St. Aignan, the 
high roofs of various buildings situated at the foot of 



176 THE LOIRE 

the cathedral of Sainte-Croix, the square tower of St. 
Donatien, the ancient municipal belfry surmounting 
the buildings of the old Maison des Creneaux, formerly 
the H6tel de Ville, the tower of St. Paul's Church and 
Notre Dame de Recouvrance. . . ." 

The river must present a very different appearance 
now from what it did in the time of Joan of Arc when 
she sailed upstream with her food -bearing fleet of 
vessels, to the city's relief, or even in the time of so 
recent a traveller as Young, who specially mentions the 
navigation. " There are many barges and boats at 
the quay," he writes, " built upon the river in the 
Bourbonnois, etc., loaded with wood, brandy, wine 
and other goods ; on arriving at Nantes, the vessels are 
broken up and sold with the cargo. Great numbers 
are built with spruce fir. A boat goes from hence to 
that city, when demanded by six passengers, each paying 
a louis d'or : they lie on shore every night, and reach 
Nantes in four days and a half." Young adds in the 
same passage that the " principal street leading to the 
bridge (rue Royale) is a fine one, all busy and alive, for 
trade is brisk here." He also admires " the fine acacias 
scattered about the town." There are few to admire 
now, in the central parts. A more elaborate picture 
still, of Orleans, of an Orleans that has almost utterly 
disappeared, is left by Evelyn, who visited the city on 
the 20th of April, 1644, after being " set on by rogues " 
on the way, in the midst of the forest of Orleans, and 
narrowly escaping with his life. On the night of his 
arrival he slept at the White Lion and tells a very 
tall story for so sober and dignified a man : "In the 
night a cat kitten'd on my bed, and left on it a young 



ORLEANS 177 

one having six ears, eight leggs, two bodys from the 
navil downwards, and two tayles. I found it dead, 
but warm, in the morning when I awaked." With the 
passage of time the island in the river referred to in the 
following description of the city has been swept away 
by the treacherous and changeable stream ; the bridge 
has been replaced, and the " towers " have disappeared. 
Indeed, I am inclined to think that Evelyn has in some 
respects confused Orleans with Tours, whose " opposite " 
suburbs are built on the side of a hill, whereas St. Marceau 
is flat. " The city," he records, " is well-built of stone, 
on the side of the Loyre. About the middle of the river 
is an island, full of walkes and faire trees, with some 
houses. There is a stately stone bridge, reaching to the 
opposite suburbs, built likewise on the edge of an hill, 
from whence is a beautiful prospect. At one end of the 
bridge are strong toures, and about the middle, on one 
side, is the Statue of the Virgin Mary or Pieta, with the 
dead Christ in her lap, as big as the life. At one side of 
the Crosse kneeles Cha. VII arm'd, and at the other 
Joan d'Arc, arm'd like a cavalier, with boots and spurrs, 
her hayre dischevel'd, as the deliveress of the toune 
from our countrymen, when they besieg'd it. The 
figures are all cast in copper, with a pedistall full of 
inscriptions as well as a faire columne joyning it, which 
is adorn'd with fleurs de lys and a crucifix, with two 
saints proceeding as it were from two branches out of 
its capital. The inscriptions on the Crosse are in 
Latine : ' Mors Christi in cruce nos a contagione labis 
et aeturnorum morborum sanavit.' On the pedestal : 
' Rex in hoc signo hostes profligavit, et Johan'a Virgo 
Aureliam obsidio liberavit,' etc." 

N 



178 THE LOIRE 

" To this," he continues, " is made an annual pro- 
cession on 12 May, Masse being sung before it, attended 
with great ceremony and concourse of people." (The 
fete de Jeanne d'Arc was a well-established festival 
in Evelyn's day.) "The wine of this place," he adds, 
" is so strong, that the King's cup-bearers are, as I was 
assured, sworne never to give the King any of it ; 
but it is a very noble liquor, and much of it trans- 
ported into other countrys. The town is much fre- 
quented by strangers for the greate purity of the 
language here spoken, as well as for divers other 
priviledges ; and the University makes the towne much 
frequented by strangers, especially Germans, which 
causes the English to make no long sojourne hear, 
except such as can drinke and debauch. The Citty 
stands in the County of Beaulse, was once stiled a 
kingdom, afterwards a Dutchy, as at present, belonging 
to the second son of France. Many Councils have been 
held here, and some Kings crown'd. The University is 
very antient, divided now by the students into that of 
four nations, French, High Dutch, Normans and 
Picardins, who have each their respective protectors, 
several officers. Treasurers, Consuls, Scales etc. There 
are in it two reasonable, faire publiq Libraries, whence 
one may borrow a booke to one's chamber, giving but a 
note under hand, which is an extraordinary custome, 
and a confidence that has cost many Libraries deare. 
The first church I went to visit was St. Croix ; it has 
been a stately fabric, but has been much ruin'd by the 
late Civil Warrs. They report the toure of it to have 
been the highest in France. There is the beginning 
of a faire reperation. About this cathedrale is a very 



ORLEANS 179 

spacious cemeterie. The towne-hous is nobly built, 
with a high tower to it. The market-place and streetes, 
some whereof are diliciously planted with limes, are 
ample and straite, are well paved with a kind of pebble, 
that I have not seen a neater towne in France. This 
Citty was by Francis I esteemed the most agreeable 
of his great dominions." So much for Orleans in 
the seventeenth century ; evidently a shadier and 
pleasanter place than the Orleans of to-day, whose 
Hausmannised streets are for the most part quite 
innocent of lime trees. 

For some days I could not understand how so big a 
city could have so little " life." True, there was the big 
fair with its Cirque Suisse, its concerts, cinematograph 
shows and "Roue joyeuse," its magnificent merry-go- 
rounds, and its mile of booths ; but that was, after all, 
a temporary thing. They could not, surely, crowd their 
summer dissipations into the three or four weeks for 
which it lasted. Certainly the fair was extremely 
amusing. For the joy of riding on a flying pig, an 
ostrich or a galloping horse, I would most cheerfully 
undertake a ten-mile walk. The blare of the steam 
organ grinding out the popular tune, thrills me to the 
quick ; my heart leaps when I see the metal figure — 
with his peaked cap, brown beard and little blue 
jacket — whose clock-work arm waves jerkily up and 
down his imbecile conductor's baton. I love too the 
elegant females with swelling bosoms, upturned eyes 
and bright yellow hair, whose images act as inspirations 
on either side of him ; and I invariably examine the 
name of the Italian firm responsible for the organ and 
its adornments, with a kind of rapture. The toot-toot 



180 THE LOIRE 

of the engine announcing that the ostriches are starting 
another flight is dearer to me than the song of the 
nightingale. I spend a fortune (or such a part of one 
as I happen to have available) on " streamers." To 
encircle a pretty girl's neck with a flying lasso of blue 
paper and to catch her disappearing smile as the 
galloping charger swings her quickly round and out 
of sight, seems to me the most profitable and delightful 
occupation in the world. To seek oblivion, forgetful- 
ness, the power not to " think " in alcohol, is animal 
and absurd when there are round-abouts in the offing. 
I defy anyone to sit glum, morbid and morose while 
he is being whirled round to the deafening and delirious 
strains of the steam organ. The merry-go-round is to me 
the one joy which never palls. 

At the fair at Orleans an electrically-illuminated 
palace was devoted to the cult of the carrousel. Its 
appearance, from the outside, suggested the front 
entrance of an exhibition. Two enormous arc-lamps 
illuminated a magnificent triumphal arch of painted 
canvas ; the side walls of the structure, also of canvas,, 
were painted with lovely women floating on cloud- 
bolsters, in an azure sky. From within came melodious, 
alluring sounds. A very fat woman with black hair, 
and a Hebrew nose through which she constantly 
sniffed, sat at the entrance at the receipt of custom, 
with a brown knitted shawl over her shoulders. A high 
desk piled with money rose in front of her, and here 
the devotees paid their 80 centimes, and were admitted. 
Inside the tent was a huge and beautiful merry-go- 
round, a very prince of merry-go-rounds ; a thronged 
promenade encircled it On the left hand was a small 




IHE I^OIRE NEAR (JRLHAXS (La ChaPELLE-St - M KSM I \). 



ORLEANS 181 

huvette, with green-painted iron chairs and tables ; on 
the right was the counter where " streamers " of every 
colour in the rainbow were sold in bundles for half a 
franc. With an experience of merry-go-rounds that 
extends from the donkey-driven " fit-up " of an Essex 
village to such varied splendours as those of St. Giles's 
Fair at Oxford, Paris on the Quatorze Juillet, and the 
fete de St. Cloud, I have to admit that I had never before 
seen, nor even imagined a carrousel so magnificent. 
My memories of Orleans centre round it. Sometimes 
in dreams it comes to me, looming portentous and 
unearthly. I see a constant procession of masked 
figures, like the quaint people in Pietro Longhi's scenes 
from Goldoni's Comedies, passing to and fro round it ; 
leering or laughing, throwing streamers, pointing with 
emaciated fingers, casting avid glances, feeling for the 
small concealed dagger or slily, perhaps, sliding an 
amorous arm round a companion's waist. And in the 
middle of it all revolves the huge, glittering round-about, 
with its ostriches and horses, round whose necks cling 
fantastically clothed men and girls. They seem 
to leap up, as they come abreast of one, as though 
about to be hurled from their steeds, and then to 
sink down as they swirl round and out of sight. 
And the music from the steam organ, conducted by 
the grotesque manikin with his inflexible forearm 
moving up and down and beating the wrong time, 
seems (in my dream) to be curiously distinct and 
horrible, and yet remote. Often the sides of the tent 
shutting in the glittering, monstrous machine and its 
revolving crowds seem to drop away, and the scene 
becomes encircled instead by a ring of tall, black trees — 



182 THE LOIRE 

admirable decor. A round yellow moon peers cynically 
over these trees, but the crowd take no notice ; the 
women see nothing but the arc lamps and the looking- 
glasses, the men nothing but the glow in the women's 
eyes. Sometimes couples steal away on tip-toe among 
the shadows, but nobody notices : the huge carrousel 
holds the collective attention of the crowd, with its 
brilliance, colour, garish noise, excitement and speed. 
But the symbolism of the merry-go-round and the fun 
of it, all the fun of the fair, even for a crowded month, 
were, I knew, insufficient to keep a pleasure-loving 
French city amused during a whole summer. Where 
did the people go to enjoy themselves ? The yellow 
tramcars answered the question for me. A person of 
simple tastes, tramcars, and other public conveyances 
of an inexpensive character have, like round-abouts, 
a certain fascination for me. I like to get on to them 
and continue in my seat until in some strange, un- 
finished suburb or outlying township, they come 
abruptly to a standstill. Then I descend and explore. 
Following this habit I boarded a car in the place du 
Martroi, crossed over to the left bank of the river, 
and went as far as the little town of Olivet. This is not 
a prepossessing place on a first view, but on the way the 
Loiret is crossed at a beautiful spot where there are 
many cafes and boating stations and the scene is very 
animated. I reserved that, however, for the return 
journey and persevered as far as the terminus. From 
Olivet it is no more than a two-mile walk to the Chateau 
de la Source, in whose beautiful gardens are the two 
springs from which the Loiret starts, known as the 
Abime and the Bouillon. They are said to have 



ORLEANS 183 

subterranean communication with the Loire, and 
certainly when the waters of the Loire rise, those of 
the Loiret follow suit at an interval of from one to two 
days. No doubt the springs are fed by the waters that 
the Loire loses in the sand, above Orleans. The Loiret 
leaps into being at once as a navigable river for 
ordinary canoes and river craft ; its waters are admir- 
ably clear, its banks beautifully wooded and studded 
with the flower gardens of pretty houses, and green lawns 
sloping to the water's edge. The Chateau de la Source 
is a charming house consisting principally of a long, 
elegant fagade, with a sharp, sloping roof, adorned in the 
middle with four flattened pillars supporting a triangular- 
shaped classical pediment. Returning to Olivet I 
eventually reached the Loiret again, where I had first 
noticed it. On either side of the stone bridge which 
bears the tramway from Orleans across the river 
were cafes and restaurants. At all of these " barques" 
could be hired by the hour for a small sum ; " matelotes " 
and " fritures " were specialities ; and you could sit under 
green trees by the river-side and drink your coffee or 
sir op while listening to a band. The river, which is 
rather wider than the upper Cherwell by the Parks at 
Oxford, and more beautiful, has but a gentle current. 
It was crowded with boats on the Sunday afternoon on 
which I first discovered it. A busy motor boat made 
constant journeys, carrying passengers from the bridge 
to a cafe some way down the river, or bringing them 
back from it. All down one side of the river was a row 
of cafes, one after another, with curious and alluring 
names, in whose gardens laughed and perspired crowds 
of Orleannais, who were obviously enjoying themselves. 



184 THE LOIRE 

Now and then a banjo trilled out across the river, or 
someone sang a comic song. Here, evidently, the towns- 
people expanded; dances, concerts, and dissij)ations 
of every kind were plainly indulged in at the Prado, 
or the Eldorado, or in the gardens of La Pepiniere. No 
wonder after their shadeless and broiling streets they 
enjoyed the coolness of these green meadows and 
beautifully wooded reaches. Sculling in the brightly 
painted " barques " that are for hire is not as pleasant as 
it might be, for those who appreciate the niceties of this 
art. The clumsy oars hook on to the row-locks so 
that you cannot feather, and the boats are heavy ; but, 
after all, what does it matter ? Why should one wish 
to arrive anywhere when the mere fact of moving along 
under the trees is so pleasant ? 

Having now discovered what Orleans could do in 
the way of suburbs, I explored still further, adventuring 
to the chateau of St. Loup on the banks of the Loire, 
nearly two miles above the town, and to La Clr npelle- 
St. Mesmin, two and a half miles below. La Chapelle- 
St. Mesmin is a beautiful old village, terraced 
above the Loire, a smiling, verdant spot nestling in 
trees under the edge of that vast, bare plateau, the 
plain of La Beauce, which surrounds Orleans. Here, 
again, is a place where one can enjoy oneself. The 
village stretches in a long line at the top of a steep, 
grassy embankment above the river, which, at this point, 
is wide and placid, and free from sand-banks. You 
may sit under the vines in the garden of the Cafe de 
Bellevue and watch the primitive ferry struggling across 
with its load of pedestrians and cyclists, at the Orleans 
end of the village ; or walk on past the old church and 



ORLEANS 



185 



the sleepy places to the beginning of the fairy - Uke 
woods of St. Mesmin, full of acacias with delicate bright 
leaves, through which the sunshine glints. There are 
several more cafes, on the borders of the wood, where you 
may dance and sing, drink wine or beer, and embrace 
Phyllis in the shade of an arbour. One of these, with 
a flowery garden sloping down to the river's brink, 
was called prettily " La Closerie des Roses." But the 




The Loire near Orleans 



woods of St. Mesmin — one could not have believed it 
of so bare-seeming a country-side. All among the 
trees, that were not too tall but exquisitely green, 
grew long luxuriant grass and bracken to make the 
softest of beds. There was nothing to stojD one from 
wandering at will, and yet few paths or well-worn 
tracks, only one central road. In some places the 
wood became darker, the branches thicker, and the 
trees taller, giving an effect of solemnity ; then, the 
next minute, you would be among a group of acacia 



186 THE LOIRE 

trees whose leaves seemed to make beautiful cascades 
of bright yellowish green, all tinged with warm gold 
in the sunlight. And constantly, as you wandered 
aimless and delighted, you would come out with a cry 
of joy on the grassy clearing above the river. Then 
you would see a vast country-side spread out before 
you, and in the distance the twin towers of Orleans 
Cathedral ; and always the great river, very splendid 
just here and majestic, winding like a huge snake — 
blue now, but ready to be flooded with crimson by a 
dying sun or turned by the risen moon into a glittering 
roadway of silver. I do not know of any enchanted 
woods quite like the woods of St. Mesmin below Orleans. 
They are gentle, unterrifying woods, where you come 
quite naturally on whole families sitting in the grass 
in a circle, or lying on their backs — the men in their 
shirt-sleeves, the women perspiring in their blouses, 
with their hats off. And you might as soon meet a 
pleasant nymph or an amiable dryad : witches and 
all malevolent creatures and spirits would hardly feel 
at home in it. 

I walked back to Orleans as the sun sank in the 
west, at the close of the beautiful golden day ; walked 
along the high embankment which was studded with a 
white flower that grew to the very water's edge ; and 
watched the outlines of the landscape growing sharper 
and more defined, the shadows beginning to lengthen. 
I saw three men, half-way towards Orleans, throw off 
their clothes and enter the river ; the sun made their 
arms shine as they lifted them out of the water in the 
side-stroke. It caught the row of drops that hung 
for the brief instant, making them sparkle and glitter. 



ORLEANS 187 

The swimmers were soon borne down the stream by 
the swift current ; and when they had gone as far 
as they wanted they struck in to the bank and pulled 
themselves on shore, then raced upstream along the 
grass while the sun at their backs seemed to shed 
a golden radiance over their bodies. They were some- 
how the final touch that the river wanted just here, 
those bathers. They took away any look that it might 
have had of savagery, made it a human river. 

But in spite of its beautiful suburbs, its unsui-passed 
merry-go-round, and its aristocratic " society," nothing 
could really alter the fact that Orleans was a dull place. 
In ten days I decided I had seen enough of it, and so, 
one morning — not without some sinking of the heart at 
having to face the " Chateaux of the Loire," most 
repellent to me of all well-worn trips — I started out to 
catch the express for Blois. 



CHAPTER Xm 

BEAUGENCY 

XN telling her charge to " cheer up " after some 
-*- infantile catastrophe, I remember that my old 
nurse would remark sagely, and in parenthesis, that 
after all you never knew what might happen next, for 
great joys like great sorrows always arrived by accident, 
unwooed, and when you least expected them. I con- 
fess with some shame that it was pure accident that 
gave me the great joy of discovering Meung and 
Beaugency. When I left Orleans these names conveyed 
nothing to me at all ; I decided to settle myself in the 
express and pass them by. I took my seat in the train, 
having first bought Artzybachev's " Sanine," which I 
was curious to read, at the station bookstall. So it was 
" Sanine," then, that did it ? The train left at the 
appointed time, and I became absorbed in my book. 
We stopped at Les Aubrais, the station just outside 
Orleans, I thought for rather a long time ; then the 
train went on. Again, after a little while, it stopped a 
second time. This cannot be Blois already, I thought. 
I looked out, and the station was strangely familiar : I 
was back at Orleans ! The contrSleur cut short my 
fierce remarks as to the infamy of not informing all 
passengers that to catch the express trains to the west 

i88 



BEAUGENCY 189 

it was necessary to change at Les Aubrais ; he cut me 
short by indicating another train, a slow one, that was 
on the point of starting in the direction of Blois. I 
chmbed into it, threw down " Sanine," and settled my- 
self in a corner to study the landscape ; I did not have 
to change this time. The fertile and flat plain of Beauce 
did not prove a very thrilling landscape to study, but 
the smiling village of St. Ay, on a vine-covered hill above 
the Loire — the country people pronounce it " Sinti," 
and it is here that much of the wine is grown that is 
made into vinegar and " Quinquina " at Orleans — was an 
indication of better things. And Meung and Beaugency 
were to follow. I left the train at Meung and explored 
it with surprised joy. It is an old town of about three 
thousand people, silent, motionless, and grave, asleep 
amid the greenness of its gardens, and traversed by a 
brook, the Mauve, which turns its water-wheels. The 
Loire, crossed here by a suspension bridge, winds in front 
of the place without a single boat upon its broad surface ; 
there is not a movement anywhere unless it is perhaps 
some sand-diggers filling a cart at the bottom of the 
fields, or the rhythmic cadence of a horse's hoofs on the 
bridge. On the opposite side, in the sad country of 
Sologne, the stream is flanked by long lines of alders 
with shuddering leaves, and the plain is diversified here 
and there by round clumps of trees. 

In mediaeval times Meung must have been a town of 
some importance. It had a large abbe}^ and was a 
stronghold which played its part in the wars against 
the English, and was relieved by Joan of Arc a little 
while after her delivery of Orleans. Nowadays the 
curious twelfth-century church of St. Liphard, which is 



190 



THE LOIRE 



attached b}^ a curtain-wall to a thirteenth-century forti- 
fied tower — the oldest part of the castle of the Bishops 
of Orleans — is the most interesting of the old buildings 




The Porte d'Amont at Meiing 

which have survived. Besides the church, one of the 
old town gates, the Porte d'Amont, and some ancient 
dwelling-houses, are all that remain to remind one of the 



BEAUGENCY 191 

past. The church is very curious, and has, inside, a 
kind of beautiful severity. It is flanked on the west by 
a great Romanesque tower surmounted by a pyramidal 
stone spire ; a robust, substantial tower whose gaping 
arches at the top, before the spire begins, are haunted 
by circling crows that seem to enhance its effect of 
antiquity. 

The Porte d'Amont is a simple square tower built 
across the road, finished with a roof sloping steeply to a 
point, and crowned by a little turret. As the stranger 
enters the town he can look up at a clock se^t where the 
roof begins, and at the saint in his niche just over the 
arch. As I have said, there is not much of interest in 
Meung besides the church, the remains of the bishop's 
castle, this gate, and some buildings near the bridge con- 
nected with Louis XI, who is said to have occupied them. 
But where the restorer's hand has not been too heavy 
there is always a chance for the imagination. As I 
walked along the shady promenade above the river I 
suddenly remembered the rascal Villon who was shut 
up in 1461 by Thibault d'Aussigny, Bishop of Orleans, 
in one of the towers of his castle : 

" Ell un bas lieu, non pas en haut." 

Here it was that he was so fearfully badly fed and 

composed the first part of his humorous " Grant 

Testament," where the laughter is so close to tears. 

" Ell Tail trentiesme de moii eao^e^ 
Que toutes mes lioiites j'eii beues, 
Ne du tout fol, lie du tout sage. 
Nonobstaut maintes peiiies eues^ 
Lesquelles j'ay toutes receues, 
Soubz la main Thibault d'Aussigny. 
S'evesque il est, seignant les rues, 
Qu'il soit le mien je le regny !" 



192 THE LOIRE 

Villon spent " tout ung este " in great discomfort at Meung, 
but luckily for him Louis XI, who had just succeeded to 
the throne, passed through the town in the autumn of 1461 
and delivered him. Meung has still earlier literary asso- 
ciations, for Jean Clopinel, who continued and completed 
Guillaume de Lorris's " Roman de la Rose," under the 
name of Jean de Meung, was born here in the thirteenth 
century. Again, was it not in a tavern of Meung that 
Alexandre Dumas first introduced us to the " Trois 
Mousquetaires " ? With Walter Scott (" Quentin 
Durward "), Chaucer (who translated the " Roman 
de la Rose "), Dumas and Villon to stir one's imagina- 
tion, Meung, willy-nilly, took on all the colours of 
romance. The peacefulness, the silence, the clear 
sparkling air and the golden sunshine of that June 
morning lent a final touch of charm. 

But if I exhaust my adjectives over Meung I shall 
have nothing left for Beaugency. Beaugency may not 
have known Villon nor D'Artagnan, nor have been the 
birth-place of a poet whose name is held in awe, but 
whose books none but professors can read — yet it is 
an ancient city full of ancient buildings, whose every 
stone stirs the imagination : a dead city, a lovely 
corner in which the flavour of the Middle Ages has been 
curiously, exquisitely preserved. It is finer than Meung 
because more complete ; it has no factories, or work- 
shops, has suffered little from the restorer and from the 
modern spirit. It is five miles below Meung on the 
same side of the river (the right), and not quite fifteen 
miles from Orleans. The landscape here is wide and 
open, getting all its character from the great river that 
traverses it, but is more beautiful and agreeable than 



BEAUGENCY 193 

at Orleans. Beaugency with its belfry, its spires, and 
jumble of old roofs surrounding a great square donjon, 
is like a fairy town, fantastically grouped and outlined, 
a jewel in a green setting. On the left bank is a wide 
expanse that it contemplates with equanimity. This ex- 
panse, after a few houses at the head of the bridge, con- 
sists of nothing but a stretch of rich meadows traversed 
by raised embankments called guidons, erected after the 
great floods of 1856 to guide the waters in the direction 
of the bridge and as far as possible to preserve the fields. 
Here and there one notices clumps of trees — ^those in 
the distance looking like dark green tufts — that crown 
the few small undulations of the land. The river by 
Beaugency contains a number of islands — long, verdant 
strips of soil rising out of the water — yellow sand-banks, 
and lines of tall reeds and rushes joining islet to islet. 
Here, where now there is no living thing to be seen 
save perhaps a few cows munching grass, stood formerly 
two populous suburbs- — Bourgneuf above the town, 
Beaumont below it — in which important industries were 
carried on, such as cloth-weaving and candle-making. 
Both were swept utterly away by the floods of 1598 and 
1608. On the left bank, about a mile and a half below 
the bridge, is a meadow still known as the Pres d'Alonne, 
after a Seigneur of the sixteenth century. The legend 
says that he left the field in his will to the young married 
couples of Beaugency who should be able to sub- 
stantiate their claim to having passed the first year of 
their marriage without the shadow of a dispute or of a 
regret. No claimants have ever presented themselves, 
and the meadow still awaits an owner ! 

The finest view of Beaugency is undoubtedly to be 
o 



194 THE LOIRE 

had from the river, though even from the railway it 

looks sufficiently exciting to make you leap out of the 

train with eagerness. If you keep to the right after leaving 

the station you come almost at once from the Grand 

Mail to the Petit Mail. The latter is a lovely promenade 

of tall trees, cool and dark in the hottest sunshine, from 

the end of which on a clear day the Basilica of Clery 

on the opposite bank — where Louis XI lies buried in 

the splendid fifteenth-century church of Notre Dame — 

and even the twin towers of Orleans Cathedral, can be 

discerned. The bells of Notre Dame de Clery, like those 

of Beaugency, formerly enjoyed a great celebrity and 

are commemorated in a nursery rhyme : 

" Orleans, Boisgency, 
Notre Dame de Clery, 
Vendome, Vendome ! 
Quel cliagrin, quel ennui, 
De compter toute la nuit, 
Les lieures, les lieures.^' 

From the shady promenade of the Petit Mail it is 
possible to scramble down the steep declivity, by a 
path, to the river ; or to enter Beaugency by the half- 
ruined gateway on the left, the Porte-Tavers. Beau- 
gency is full of interesting things ; but all the buildings 
are dwarfed, at all events in size, by the huge eleventh- 
century keep, the Tour de Cesar. This is now but a 
massive shell ; for a timber merchant to whom it was 
sold after the Revolution, cleared away the mass of 
earth supporting the central pillar, which, in 1816, 
gave way, bringing down with it the three floors above 
and leaving the tower open to the sky. It was bought 
by the State in 1843, and you are not allowed to go 
inside. It is improbable that this is a great deprivation : 



BEAUGENCY 



195 



the exterior of the great fortress makes quite sufficient 
effect with its crowd of jackdaws cawing and circHng 
round its lichened, crumbling parapets. 

Joan of Arc, inevitably, has her place in the history 
of Beaugency. She besieged an English garrison in this 
very stronghold and forced them to evacuate it on June 
17th, 1429. A statue of her stands in the middle of the 
place St. Firmin on a spot once occupied by the great 




_^ _ ^ ^^ 












\\\ 



Beaugency 

parish church of St. Firmin, which was destroyed, with 
the exception of the belfry tower, in the time of the 
Revolution. This belfry is a high and beautiful erection 
surmounted by the oddest little spike — it does not de- 
serve to be called a spire — which can be seen for a 
radius of many miles round the town. 

Close to the Tour de Cesar is the newer chateau, 
rebuilt by Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans, in 1440. It 
was at one time surrounded by a system of walls and 



196 THE LOIRE 

formidable towers stretching from the old donjon to the 
bridge across the Loire. The com-tyard is charming with 
its open arcading, and charming, too, is the staircase 
turret with its round, pointed roof. In the great hall, 
called the Salle de Jeanne d'Arc, is an enormous fire- 
place ; and under the building are said to stretch very 
curious cellars. The chateau is used now as a Depot 
de IMendicite. Near by is the ancient church of the 
Benedictine Abbey of Notre Dame, a building in the 
Romanesque style of the eleventh century, which has 
been several times restored, especially after its partial 
destruction (by fire) in 1567 when the Huguenots 
were committing their worst excesses in the town. 
There is a good deal of ciu-ious stone-cai'ving on the 
two entrance archways and on some of the pillars in 
the nave. I carried away a very vivid memory of the 
cynical, grimacing head — full of the vivid expressive- 
ness of a half -barbaric art — on the second pillar on the 
right-hand side. The church is all that now remains 
of the old abbey buildings, with the exception of the 
curious round tower known as the Tour du Diable 
which flanks the Abbot's house. The latter has been fre- 
quently rebuilt and is now a large and not particularlj'- 
interesting dwelling, facing the river. The Hotel de Ville 
is an elaborate Renaissance building, dating from 1526, 
with a carved facade that has been so utterly restored 
as to look like an excellent imitation of itself. Liside 
are some valuable and beautiful tapestries, spoils from 
the abbey and dating possibly from the sixteenth 
century, which represent the four quarters of the globe. 
Among the other buildings of Beaugency which must be 
referred to in detail are the Tour de I'Horloge, the old 



BEAUGENCY 197 

" Porte Vendomoise," which bridges the rue du 
Change and bears the town clock just under its bell- 
turret. Near by it is a beautiful twelfth-century house. 
Turning now up a steep, winding street you come to 
the broad place du Martroi, paved with cobble-stones, 
which contains the various cafes ; and at the end nearest 
the station are the town's two inns, the Hotel de I'Ecu, 
and the H6tcl St. Etienne. I put up at the latter, 
which has the disused church of St. Etienne — a small 
cruciform building of the eleventh century — adjoining 
its yard. 

It has taken nearly as much time to mention the various 
points of interest as it took to visit them. Beaugeney 
is very compact ; everything is close together and close 
to the river. I did not discover, however, some of the 
picturesque streets all at once. They hid themselves 
shyly ; indeed, the streets of small French towns often 
seem to have the trick of secrecy. One of the most 
delightful that revealed itself subsequently is the narrow 
rue du Ru, in the lower part of the town, through 
the midst of which glides the little brook the Ru. 

I notice that I have left mention of the most wonderful 
and fascinating of all the monuments in Beaugeney till 
the end — I mean the bridge. It is the oldest of all the 
bridges across the Loire and the most famous. Some, 
at least, of its twenty-six arches are said to date from 
the eleventh century ; the majority date from the four- 
teenth century. Some are flat, made of cement and 
iron — these are where the bridge was cut in 1815, and 
again in 1870, when a frantic but unavailing struggle 
was waged here by the Armee de la Loire against the 
Germans, for four or five consecutive days. 



198 THE LOIRE 

Many legends have naturally enough gathered round 
the bridge, in the chief of which the Devil plays a 
prominent part. Indeed he is said to have built it 
himself in a single night. 

"he pont de Beaugency, la liuitieme merveille^ 
Est une (Buvre du diable, une oeuvre sans pareille ! 
II I'a fait d'uiie nuit^ et comnie tout d'uri coup^ 
Sans qii'on ait des marteaux entendu meme un coup ; 
Seulement il avait reserve pour lui la plus belle ame 
Qui passorait ce pont, jeune, vieux, homme ou femme. 
Les gens de Beaugency — I'on peut compter sur eux ! 
Se tirerent tres bien d'un pas si dangereux : 
lis prirent un matou de force appreciable 
Et sur le pont tout neuf le lancerent : le diable, 
Distrait probablement, se saisit du matou 
Et rageur Pemporta dans I'enfer, Dieu sait ou ? 
Pas une ame ne fut, grace a ce stratageme, 
Condaninee a subir les feux du gouffre et meme 
Grand honneur nous en vint quand plus tard on I'apprit, 
Nous passons depuis lors pour avoir de I'esprit. 

Ornes de sobriquets cousacre's par I'histoire, 
Celebres sont deja sur les bords de la Loire, 
Les Guepins d'Orle'ans et les Anes de Meung ; 
Nous, nous avons conquis un titre moins commun ; 
Doux, fins, griffants parfois, polis pour tout le monde 
Jusques au dernier tour de la machine ronde, 
En souvenir du Cliat qu'un diable prit ici. 
Nous serons appele's : Les Chats de Beaugency." 

Dinner on the day of my arrival was an affair from 
which I was glad to escape. We sat round a long table 
in a very stuffy room : I was next to two young motor- 
ists from Paris. At the end of the table on the opposite 
side was a tiresome Greybeard — alas, a too familiar 
type not only in France and England, but probably all 
over the world. He talked at immense length, and his 
conversation was employed exclusively for the display 



BEAUGENCY 



199 



of his various qualities : his learning, intelligence, 
breadth of view, patriotism, importance in his native 
commune, generosity of character. He talked, I must 
admit, with an excellent manner — ^that is a thing which 
all Frenchmen seem to know how to acquire — but he 















3'^ 



% ' 







Beaugency Bridge 

went on ! His loud voice drowned the noises of the 
service and the discreet tinkle of dexterously managed 
knife and fork ; it drowned everything. Then, in an 
unlucky moment, his eye swept his audience and fell on 
me. He began to talk of England. He spoke of the 
independence of the English ; of their energy and 
justice ; of their wealth ; of the Entente Cordiale ; of 



200 THE LOIRE 

his friend Sir Robinson, a leader of the House of Lords ; 
of the Enghsh Constitution and the admirable virtues of 
le roi Edouard. During this harangue his own and his 
neighbours' eyes stole constantly in my direction. 
Clearly I was to join in : the graceful remark was 
expected of me ; something gracious and dignified, and 
yet, as became the mouthpiece of a nation, not too 
familiar. I could see it followed by toasts, for the 
pompous old idiot had evidently been a Mayor. From 
the spectacle of a shy Englishman endeavouring to rise 
to such a social occasion, tactful eyes will instinctively 
avert their gaze. It is enough to say that the dinner 
did not last for ever. 

Pleasantly exhilarated with the wine I had drunk to 
enable myself to do justice to my country, I went out 
into the place du Martroi. The evening was perfect — ^the 
western sky was a bright, unearthly green changing to a 
pink which faded in its turn to grey. Straight above me 
was a stony blue, not yet the deep blue that it would be- 
come later, when the moon rose and the green radiance 
disappeared. I turned for a moment, for a liqueur of 
cognac, into the Cafe de I'Agriculture, a fairly large 
and quite empty cafe presided over by a widow with a 
long yellow nose that curled over at the end like the 
trunk of an elephant. She had jingling keys knocking 
at her side and wore a black alpaca apron. Seated on a 
red plush seat against the wall, on the right-hand side 
of the door as you went in, were her two daughters. 
They had frizzy yellow hair ; one sewed a chemise, the 
other made interminable efforts to play a scale correctly 
on the mandoline. Of course, if they had not been so 
ugly they would have been making love under the trees 



BEAUGENCY 201 

of the Petit Mail, or on the long silent quais by the Loire. 
On that most amorous of June nights no girl worth her 
salt could have resisted the entreaty of a lover's arms. 
I went down again towards the river, and sat on the 
stone parapet in the middle of the bridge. Slowly the 
moon rose, the green and pink glow faded from the sky. 
Looking over the parapet I could see the water swirling 
down, under the arches, making tourhillons, dangerous 
for even the strongest swimmer. The moon shone bale- 
fully on these miniature whirlpools that made a faint 
sucking noise, not unlike a deep chuckle —the only mur- 
mur that broke the almost unearthly stillness. I noticed 
that, growing in every crevice of the stone, when I 
looked over, were flowers and grasses, denuded now of 
all colour save a lovely pallor, but preserving in the 
moonlight the delicacy and distinctness of their outlines. 
On the left bank of the stream the occasional clumps of 
trees looked mysteriously black, and seemed haunted by 
malevolent beings that might make a sally at any 
minute. You could imagine them capering across the 
white meadows^or down the road that stretched like 
a line of burnished silver into the dim distance — to 
return before the moonbeams could catch them to their 
home among the tree -trunks. On one of the islands in 
front of me a cow moved a few steps forward, very 
deliberately, and stopped expectant, the moisture 
glistening in her large, soft eyes. Beaugency looked 
altogether a fantastic city now, with its great donjon 
silhouetted against the deep blue ; its jumble of roofs, 
towers and sharp - pointed turrets. For a moment 
nothing stirred or uttered a sound except the great 
impatient river. 



202 THE LOIRE 

I went back, unable to bear such beauty any 
longer, went muttering some banal quotation from 
Browning about the " time and place," which gained 
point from the sudden bubble of rich laughter which 
came from a girl's heart, as I passed under the trees 
by the quai. When I reached the place du Martroi 
there was not a soul. The cafes were shut : no one 
stirred. As if realising the futility of the unequal 
struggle, the yellow lights had all disappeared. The 
moon beat breathlessly on to the broad, empty expanse 
of cobble-stones : the houses on one side of it were all 
black, the others shone blankly like faces from which 
personality and expression have disappeared. As I 
walked across the square the pavement was white like 
snow and my body threw a black shadow across it. I 
had the sensation of actually bathing in light. I could 
almost feel it on my forehead, and on my lips the 
touch of it was like a kiss that is given only once — 
exquisite, but tinged with an inevitable bitterness. 



CHAPTER XIV 

TO BLOIS 

~r WAS sitting on the bridge at Beaugency at about 
-■- eight o'clock in the morning, two days after my 
arrival, when I received a sudden and quite distracting 
surprise. Sweeping down the middle of the stream 
came a long black punt of the kind used by the sand- 
diggers ; but no sand-digger was it who navigated the 
craft. In the stern, on a bright red cushion which 
made a pleasant patch of colour in contrast to the 
boat, sat a middle-aged man, dressed in a well-cut 
double-breasted coat of grey flannel, white flannel 
trousers, and neat brown shoes. He had no hat on, 
and as he came near me I noticed that his hair was 
greyish and getting thin. He was clean-shaven ; he wore 
a monocle ; in one hand he held the end of a light oar 
that stuck out at the back of the punt and acted as a 
rudder. For the rest he floated ; quite fast enough, 
no doubt, for his peace of mind. That he was an 
Englishman was evident, and I hailed him from the quay 
as he swung inshore, for he seemed undecided whether 
to stop at Beaugency or to pass it by. 

" It's worth seeing," I suggested. 

" What is there ? " he asked. " I'm gorged with 
ruins." 

Suddenly the eye with the monocle, which, thus 

203 



204 THE LOIRE 

assisted, must have been extraordinarily piercing, 
noticed the pajier under my arm. 

*■' Brute ! " ci-icd the voyager, " you've got a ' Morn- 
ing Post.' I'm connng on shore." 

He found a jihice to hind, tied his boat up, came 
on shore, and grabbed my "' Morning Post." 

" I'm sorry," I said, very firmly, " but I shall come 
with you as far as Blois. It will take you quite ten 
minutes to read the paper, and in that time I shall 
have paid my hotel bill, sent off my luggage, and 
returned." 

The monocle dropped from in front of the keen grey 
eye ; but I saved him the trouble of finding an epigram 
by leaving him. In ten minutes I came back, unen- 
cumbered save for " Sanine " and the " Mercure de 
France." It was the heliotrope cover, I fancy, which 
really procured me my passage. 

" Look here," he said, " you steer, and I'll read : 
I'm gorged with rivers." 

He laid himself flat on his back on a long plaid rug, 
and read. We slid swiftly down the stream and came 
soon to a reach enclosed between broad yellow banks 
of sand, just opposite the village of Tavers. I ran the 
boat into the sand on the right-hand side and put out 
a tentative foot. Luckily I did not put out two, for the 
first one went in almost up to the knee. The monocle, 
hearing an exclamation from me, looked up and made 
comments. Had I not heard, he said, of the sables- 
mouvants — Les Fontenils — where the Loire changes 
its course constantly ; where one day the sand will 
bear a horse and cart, the next it will engulf a child 
of three ? These were they. I confessed my utter 



BLOIS 205 

ignorance and resigned the handling of the boat to 
abler hands. We did not land at Tavers, but on con- 
sulting Joanne I find that it is a village with 1024 
inhabitants ; with some famous vineyards on the banks 
of its brook, the Lien ; the source of a stream (la Bouture) 
with petrifying qualities ; a few remains of an old castle 
of the Black Prince ; and some connection with the 
Muses through the estate of Guignes, formerly owned by 
Charles, the celebrated doctor, and his wife, who was 
Lamartine's " Elvire." The house is now occupied by 
the Academician Jules Lemaitre. Along the valley of 
the Lien, the " ravin de Tavers," the French General 
Chanzy achieved one of his few successes with his 
hastily improvised army in that fatal winter of 1870. 
The village, embowered in trees, looked beautiful and 
smiling enough in the distance as we slipped by it that 
June morning ; and to judge from his charming poem, 
" Mon Pays," this country-side has the attraction of 
peacefulness, as well as other virtues, for M. Lemaitre : 

" Le petit vin de chez nous 

Est chose legere ; 
J'en avale de grands coups, 

II ne grise guere. 
II me fait quand je le bois, 
Le coeur et I'esprit plus droits ; 
Et Rabelais autrefois. 

En but a plein verre. 

La campagne de chez nous 

A le charme intime. 
Point de paysages fous. 

Point d'horreur sublime ; 
Mais des jjres moelleux aux pieds ; 
Petlts bois, petits sentiers ; 
Et des rangs de peupliers 

Dont tremble la cime. 



206 THE LOIRE 

Les bonnes gens de cliez nous 

Ont peu de science, 
Mais de I'esprit presque tous 

Et de la vaillauce. 
Ici plus d'un travailleur 
Vi-ai Gaulois garde en sa fleur, 
Le bon sens libre et railleur 

De la vieille France. 

Le Gi-and Fleuve de chez nous 

A mainte lubie, 
Ses bancs de sable et ses trous, 

Chacun s'en meiie, 
II est faineant, c'est sur ; 
Mais il contient tant d'azur 
Qu'a voir couler son flot pur 

Je passe ma vie." 

Below Tavers the Loire makes broad and graceful 
curves, skirts the edge of Beauce a short while longer, 
and then glides beneath the little hills of the left bank, 
after passing by the small village of St. Laurent-des- 
Eaux, with its quaint houses with moss-grown roofs. 
Nouan-sur-Loire, some miles farther down, is another 
pretty old village, and on the right bank is the town 
of Mer, which we stopped to explore. Mer is a pleasant 
enough little place, but does not give anything like the 
compact impression of Beaugency ; nor has it had so 
interesting a history. Such importance as it can boast 
seems due to its various delightful brooks which glide 
quick and clear by the backs of its perfumed flower- 
gardens and, incidentally, turn the wheels of its mills. 
Mer has a great market covered by a square roof, and 
a church with an interesting tower ; these are its 
principal " monuments." For myself I remember 
chiefly its back gardens. The Loire now leaves once 
more the slopes of the left bank to bathe the foot of the 



208 THE LOIRE 

plateau of Beauce, and in a short while reflects in its 
waters the pretty village of Cours, whose church and 
chateau are enclosed in the park of Menars. With 
Menars begins that series of chateaux de la Loire, which 
has made Touraine one of the most famous centres in 
France for tourists. The house is said to have been 
partly designed by Mme. de Pompadour (whose brother 
was made Marquis de Menars). But whether she 
collaborated with the architect in the making of it, or 
not, Menars is a stately and beautiful house, and is 
fully worthy of the Pompadour's admirable taste, and of 
a discrimination which has left its mark on a whole 
period of French art. Even the monocle detached 
himself from the "Mercure de France" to examine 
the place. 

As afternoon faded to evening, we slipped down the 
river to Blois, seven miles farther on ; between long, 
sandy islands; between banks fringed with straight 
poplars on one hand, and vine-clad slopes on the other ; 
through a large gentle, harmonious landscape bounded, 
in the distance, by great forests. And Blois at last ! 

" Blois ! " said the monocle. " This is where the 
Chicago accent is heard in its greatest purity. I shall put 
you on shore. . . . Leave me your ' Mercure de France,' 
like a good fellow." He was incorrigible ; but his 
parade of indifference did not take me in. He was one 
of a type of Englishmen quite often met with in France. 
His passion was to be there. To spend the greater part 
of the year floating down French streams, to stay in 
inns that took his fancy, and to potter about in towns 
with agreeable names was all he cared to do. No doubt 
the fancy took him, at intervals of decreasing frequency. 



BLOIS 209 

to revisit his musty flat near St. James's Park, his club, 
and his friends. For the rest he just loafed, preserving, 
of course, the crease in his trousers, and on the whole 
" doing himself " remarkably well. 

Blois, as you approach it by river, the great old-time 
highway, develops itself before your eyes. In spite of 
the Chicago accent, it is a very French-looking city, 
and one of the most picturesque and attractive of all 
those which mirror themselves in the waters of the 
Loire. It has a brave stone bridge, adorned at its apex 
with a pointed obelisk. Over the bridge runs a highway 
traversing the suburb of Vienne on the left hand and 
stretching away, a long white line, into the heart of an 
imposing forest ; on the right it runs up into the middle 
of Blois, to the foot of one of its sharp ascents, where it 
turns off to the left and leads towards the chateau. 
Blois is in the shape of an amphitheatre, built in terraces 
up steep slojDcs which converge towards the Loire. On one 
side, on the top of a hill, is the bastard Gothic cathedral 
of St. Louis, looking well enough in the distance, with 
the Bishop's Palace enveloped in a line of thick trees on 
a terrace below it ; on the other side, below the bridge, 
rise the spires of the old abbey church of St. Nicholas. 
Between these two points— amid the crowding, inco- 
ordinate mass of slate roofs — one can divine the curious 
entanglement of narrow roads, of winding alleys, stair- 
cases, and paths, and descents more or less precipi- 
tous, ending in flights of steps, the labyrinth of old 
houses with surprising perspectives, the ancient, odd 
buildings, which an exploration shows to exist. In those 
moments of sunset, when every outline was clear-cut 
against the sky, the town, with its quays lined with 
p 



210 THE LOIRE 

white houses with slate roofs and shaded by an even line 
of trees, its jumble of streets and buildings, of towers and 
spires, looked extraordinaril}^ lovely. It was so lovely 
that I neglected my duties as navigator, and was nearly 
borne by the swift stream into the " Ecole de Natation," 
a kind of wooden floating-dock with cabins all round, 
and a splash-about in the middle of them. We avoided 
the School of Natation and ran inshore under the 
shadow of a laundry barge, from which a flight of steps 
climbed the steep, stone slope that embanked the river. 
The monocle showed unexpected powers of flirtation 
when dealing with the elderly bJanchissetise who owned 
this establishment. She laughed delightedly at him, 
and promised to look after his cushions and other 
belongings while we dined. We dined together, in a 
curious old inn, the Hotel de I'Angleterre, on the quay, 
by the bridge. The long dining-room of the hotel, on 
the first floor, looks out across the river, which is here 
narrower and more compact than usual, and free from 
islands or overmuch sand. 

After dinner the monocle would not stay, being 
" much too old for Blois," but embarked in the moon- 
light. He swirled away under the bridge between the 
sturdy, pointed stone piers and became a black speck 
on the silver pathway ; then he disappeared altogether. 

The Chicago accent was certainly in evidence. It 
greeted me at the Cafe de Blois, where I turned in to 
break the shock of parting with my companion ; it greeted 
me the following morning when I went, in the over- 
powering heat, to explore the chateau. The chateau is 
not by the river — in itself something of a disappoint- 
ment — but stands on a slight elevation at the back of 



BLOIS 211 

the town, looking on to the rococo church of St. Vincent 
de Paul. In its immediate neighbourhood were several 
big hotels ; and the chateau I took to be an hotel still 
bigger, or a hydropathic establishment, if there were 
such things in France. It looked to me precisely as if 
it had been erected in 1880 ; a provincial Hotel Metro- 
pole, built (as an additional attraction) to be an exact 
replica of the " ancient chateau of Blois." The discovery 
that this bogus affair was in truth the real thing, was a 
shock from which, though some considerable time has 
elapsed since my visit, I have not even begun to recover. 
It is the back view which presents itself so brazenly — 
with its lines of recessed windows, the niches brightly 
painted in red and blue, with gold ornamentation — 
along one side of the round place at the bottom of the 
station avenue. To enter you must climb a steep road 
to the left till you come to an open square — the Place 
du Chateau — on which the castle fronts. Above the 
doorway is an equestrian statue of Louis XII — the 
king who married Anne of Brittany — brilliantly painted 
and decorated, and dating from the sixties of the last 
century. An equestrian statue was there originally : 
but this was not it. While I examined the doorway 
and wondered whether I would risk disappointment by 
going inside, a very plump American lady with eye- 
glasses and a portly figure, dressed in a light holland 
coat with a gauzy motor veil flying behind her, got out 
of a large touring car with her grown-up son and 
daughter. She, too, paused in front of Louis XII and 
panted — I cannot reproduce her exact words and in- 
tonation — " Why, it's all new ! " The son and daughter, 
who carried cameras and consulted eagerly their new red 



212 THE LOIRE 

guide-books, reproachfully rounded on her in a way that 
was most unfair. We all went in together and waited for 
the guide. The guide had the depressed, expressionless 
aspect of a municipal building ; he seemed to have 
arrived, in his droning but distinct intonation, at the 
maximum of clearness combined with the minimum of 
effort. The outside appearance of the Louis XII fagade 
is deplorable ; the brightest new stone facings in con- 
trast with the brightest cleaned red brick. The rooms 
of this wing, which are shown first, house a small 
collection of pictures, which includes some very natural- 
istic drawings, which sent the American son and 
daughter hurrying away in pink disorder. In the 
Musee (for which you must pay an additional fee) is the 
only picture of considerable interest — "La Colombine," 
attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. The chief feature of 
the Salon d'Honneur de Louis XII, the most important 
of the rooms shown in this part, is the carved chimney- 
piece, in the centre of which is Louis's device of the 
porcupine (or hedgehog ?), surmounted by his crown. 
This elaborate piece of work may perhaps have been 
genuine ; but the State-hired painters and gilders have 
certainly done their best to make it look like a " restora- 
tion." The next point we visited was the Chapel of 
St. Calais where Henri IV was married to Marguerite de 
Valois, the building of which, unfortunately, was not 
yet completed. Great blocks of new stone encumbered 
the floor, masons and decorators were hard at work, and 
there was a notice to the effect that Monsieur Un Tel 
was having it "restored" at his own cost. I went out 
again, bewildered. We crossed over now to the most 
celebrated wing, that of Frangois I, on the right-hand 



BLOIS 213 

side as you enter. It was the facade interieure of the 
building whose exterior abuts on to the place Victor Hugo 
(where the hotels are), and is the side most often shown 
in photographs and picture postcards of Blois. It is 
the wing famous in history, where Guise was murdered, 
in which so many curious intrigues took place, where 
Catherine de Medicis had her cabinet of poisons, and 
whence Marie de Medicis made her escape. In appear- 
ance it is meticulously ornate ; a wilderness of carvings 
and adornments, so intricate that the eye turns with 
delight to the simple dignified lines of the Gaston wing 
which faces you as you enter the courtyard — the despised 
chef (Tceuvre of Mansard. The chief feature of the aile 
Frangois I is the staircase, which ascends " within a 
projecting pentagonal tower, open at each stage," and 
is decorated with innumerable carvings, no two of 
which (as the guide is careful to assure you) are alike. 
All the rooms in this wing are elaborately painted and 
decorated, the designs being scrupulously true to the 
period. Two artists were actually at work as we entered 
freshening up the paint of the first of the two ante- 
rooms in the apartments of Catherine de Medicis, on 
the first floor. Everything that a paternal government 
could do to deprive these roomis of interest had been 
done. The flavour had gone out of them, so new-gilded, 
polished, and preserved were they. When pointed out 
the window of the room through which Marie de Medicis 
escaped when imprisoned by her son Louis XIII, one 
felt merely incredulous. Queens don't escape from bay- 
windows in the Hotel Metropole. We were shown the 
private apartments of Catherine de Medicis, the bed- 
chamber in which she died in 1589, her chapel, and the 



214 THE LOIRE 

room beyond the chapel, in which she mixed her poisons. 
This small cabinet was adorned with nearly two hundred 
and fifty decorated panels — all of different design — and 
as bright as paint and varnish could make them. Here we 
were shown the secret cupboard where the poisons were 
kept — a child would find it in these days, with its eyes 
shut. Before ascending to the apartments of Henri III 
we were shown the Tour des Oubliettes and the dungeon 
in which the Cardinal de Guise was assassinated ; his 
brother, the Due de Guise, having been killed on the 
floor above on the previous day. Henri Ill's suite, 
on the second floor, includes two ante-rooms with 
carved chimney-pieces, the King's Gallery or the Salle 
du Conseil, his study and bedchamber. It was in the 
Council chamber that the Due de Guise warmed himself 
by the fire on December 23rd, 1588, the morning of his 
assassination. He was sitting eating Brignoles plums 
when he was summoned to what he well knew was his 
death. The vieux cabinet where Henri waited during 
the murder is no longer in existence. 

" ' Monsieur,' began Revol, ' the King requests your 
presence ; he is in his vieux cabinet.^ . . . Guise was 
leisurely. He put a few plums back into his box, and 
threw the rest upon the ground. ' Messieurs,' he asked, 
' would anybody like some ? ' Then, rolling up his 
cloak and taking it, with his long gloves and his sweet- 
box under his left arm, he prepared to follow Revol. 
' Adieu, Messieurs,' he said, as he went off the stage. 
He knocked at the King's door ; the usher opened 
it. . . . 

As Guise entered, one of the Guards tried to give him 
a last chance, and trod ujDon his foot. Guise under- 



BLOIS 215 

stood, but he knew escape was impossible. The usher 
had come out from the King's closet, and had shut the 
door on the inside. Guise made two steps, then took 
hold of his beard with his right hand and half turned to 
see who was following him. The Sieur de Montserine, 
who was standing by the mantelpiece, advanced and 
stabbed him swiftly in the left breast. ' Traitor, you 
will die of this ! ' he called out, as he dealed the thrust. 
The Duke hit out with his sweet-box, the only weapon 
in his hand. Three other men, concealed behind the 
tapestry, fell on him at once. ' Eh, mes amis ! ' he 
cried. When one among the rest, called Periac, pierced 
him, his voice grew louder with a prayer for pity. In 
his struggle his sword had got entangled in his cloak, 
and his legs had been seized. But, with an almost 
superhuman effort, he dragged himself from one end of 
the room to another, and along the passage to Henri's 
bedroom, leaving bloodstains in his track. ' My God, 
I am dead ! Have mercy on me ! ' he groaned. The 
words were his last ; they were heard distinctly in the 
Council hall, and his brother, the Cardinal de Guise, 
was the first to catch them." 

We examined the gilded bedroom in which Guise, 
the scarred one — le Balafre — breathed his last, the 
narrow passage adjoining it in which the first blows 
were struck, and the room in which, with odious humour, 
Henri had set two monks to " pray for the success of a 
great scheme " (without defining it), while the assassi- 
nation was taking place. We examined, as I say, these 
rooms, and, while the guide explained exactly how the 
historic murder was committed, we endeavoured to feel 
the appropriate emotions. I can only admit that I failed. 



216 THE LOIRE 

To get a vivid impression of the whole scene the best 
way, I am convinced, would be to read Miss Edith 
Sichel's book on Catherine de Medicis, from which I 
have just quoted, and — unquestionably — to stay away 
from Blois. 

Far the pleasantest memory I have of the chateau is 
of the wing already mentioned, built by Mansard for 
Gaston d'Orleans in 1635. This has never fallen into 
serious decay, so that the restorer has not had any 
excuse for reconstructing it. Its mellow masonry has 
all the exquisite colour and " quality " which are. the 
result of the weather's seasoning through three centuries. 
It houses, now, the public library, and inside there is 
an admirable Grand Staircase. 

I was glad to get away from the place. My worst fears 
regarding the famous chateaux were, I felt sure, about 
to be confirmed. For the chateau of Blois, at any rate, 
I had " no use " ! I spent the rest of that sweltering 
morning in the School of Natation, endeavouring to keep 
cool, and the later afternoon (after my siesta) in leaning 
over the stone parapet of the quay, just below the 
bridge, watching serious men throwing pieces of bread 
to the fishes. This seemed to be the great occupation of 
Blois ; it went on all day and late into the evening. 
After dinner I fell in with another of the little town's 
pleasant habits, which is faire Papin — to idle up and 
down the rue Denis PajDin with a wandering eye. I 
was anxious to restore my nerves a little before under- 
taking the inevitable excursion that awaited me on the 
morrow, the excursion which no sojourner in Blois is 
allowed to miss — to Beauregard, Cheverny, and Cham- 
bord. 



BLOIS 217 

Beauregard is four and a half miles from Blois on the 
left bank of the river, along the straight Romorantin 
road. It lies near the village of Cellettes on the Beuvron, 
a stream which drains the centre of Sologne. The house 
is said to have been built by Fran9ois I as a hunting- 
lodge, and it has been modernised and in part rebuilt. It 
is a pleasant manor, its chief claim to distinction being 
a collection of about three hundred historical portraits of 
the seventeenth century, and some handsome ceilings. 
The next village after leaving Beauregard on the right 
and passing through the forest of Russy is Cour-Chev- 
erny, where the road turns off for Chambord. Its 
church has a tall, thin spire and an early pointed door- 
way with tooth mouldings. The village of Cheverny 
proper is farther along on the Romorantin road, and the 
entrance to the chateau is opposite the small church, 
which has a Norman doorway and a kind of curious 
wooden verandah. This chateau has all the charm of 
an old country house which has been in constant occu- 
pation. It is the home of the Marquis Henri Hurault 
de Vibraye, a lineal descendant of that Philippe Hurault 
de Cheverny, whose son built the chateau as it now 
stands, in 1634. The public are admitted courteously 
by the owner during the months from April to October. 
The hand of the restorer has been rather heavy on the 
house, but since it is a " human," inhabited place, his 
touch is not here resented as it is at Blois. Many of the 
rooms retain their seventeenth-century furniture and 
decorations, and in the dining-room and corridor are 
some interesting paintings on Cordova leather. A 
Blesois artist, one Jean Mosnier, born in 1600, painted 
most of the older pictures in the chateau, which in- 



218 THE LOIRE 

elude a number of mythological paintings. The stair- 
case of carved stone is beautiful, and leads to an upper 
floor containing a fine Salle des Gardes and a state 
bedroom hung with tapestry, known as the Chambre 
du Roi. 

You must return to Cour-Cheverny, where the road 
branches, to get to Chambord. On the way, you go 
through the little town of Bracieux, on the Beuvron, 
which has some half -timber buildings and an old market- 
house set on posts ; then down long roads bordered 
with Austrian pines, through the forest of Boulogne, till 
the melancholy, " disfeatured " park of Chambord is 
entered, and the great blazing pile of white stone 
confronts you. What a fantastic "folly" of a palace 
it is : what a fairy-tale mansion — built by some Aladdin, 
with supernatural help ! Who, but a person very 
romantic and more than a little mad, could have con- 
ceived such a building in such a place ! The castle in 
the middle of its great park, which is enclosed by a stone 
wall twenty miles round, is not even on the Loire. The 
country in which it is set is the sandy marshland of 
Sologne — dotted with lakes and ponds, and divided by 
a network of small rivers — whose only " use," until the 
advent of scientific agriculture, was the excellence of 
the sport which it afforded. Chambord is a prodigious 
hunting-box. But if it has no advantages of situatiop 
to recommend it, it must be admitted that the building 
needs none. 

There had been a feudal castle on the spot before 1519 
(when the present pile was first conceived by rran5ois 
I), which the Court visited for the hunting in the 
Sologne swamps. The actual building of the new palace 



BLOIS 



219 



began in 1526, from the designs of Pierre le Nepveu, 
dit Trinqueau, the architect of Chenonceaux ; and 




A side street in Blois 



eighteen hundred men are said to have been at work on 
it year after year. When Frangois I died in 1547, only 
the centre of the building and the east wing con- 



220 THE LOIRE 

taining his own apartments were finished. In one of 
these private rooms the arch-philanderer wrote on a 
window-pane — according to Brantome, who, in his 
" Vie des Dames Galantes," declares that he saw it 
de ses propres yeux — the famous words, " Toute femme 
varie." The apocryphal legend gives the couplet : 

" Souvent femme varie, 
Bien fol qui s'y fie." 

Henri II added a wing, and changes were made by 
Louis XIV, who apparently thought the enormous 
place too small for him, for he had plans prepared for 
two additional wings, which, however, w^ere never built. 
Stanislaus Lesczinski, the ex-King of Poland and Louis 
XV's father-in-law, lived in the palace between 1725 
and 1733. He had the moat filled up, thus utterly 
spoiling the effect of the building, whidi used to rise up 
gracefully from arches, and now sj)rawls heavily on the 
ground. Here he and his queen lived for eight years 
"in the practice of all the Christian virtues." A worthier 
occupant was the celebrated Marechal de Saxe, who 
was given the house by the King in 1748, three years 
after the battle of Fontenoy. 

Maurice de Saxe, the natural son of Augustus II, 
Elector of Saxony, and the fine-spirited and beautiful 
Aurora von Konigsmark, was the only master Cham- 
bord has ever known with an imagination splendid 
enough to do it justice. This great genius, who was, as 
the saying is, "every inch a king," though the bar 
sinister stood between him and his father's dominions, 
is one of those historical figures about whom it is 
impossible to read without a quickened pulse. Did he 
not win the battle of Fontenoy, seated in a Bath chair. 



BLOIS 221 

too ill to walk, and enliven the monotonous intervals 
between the battles of his brilliant campaigns with the 
performances of Mme. Favart, the celebrated beauty, 
and his private operatic troupe ? As a young man with 
dark, handsome features and brilliant blue eyes, he was 
famous as the lover of Adrienne Lecouvreur. His genius 
for love and war showed itself characteristically in his 
life at Chambord, which Louis XV presented to him as 
a reward for his services. He built barracks for twelve 
hundred cavalry, went in for horse-breeding, and kept 
an immense hunting stable, and a menagerie. " Cham- 
bord," says Mr. Theodore Andrea Cook, " became a gay 
garrison town, with a stirring combination of military 
display, sporting activities, and occasional dramatic 
episodes. His regiment retained the name of ' Volon- 
taires de Saxe,' which had been given them when they 
were raised in 1743. They wore green uniforms, with 
helmets of gilt brass, enriched with a russia leather 
turban and surmounted by a horsehair tuft. The 
Uhlans carried sabre, lance, and pistols, the Dragoons 
had a rifled carbine and sword, and one troop was 
composed of negroes on white horses. All that was 
best in French society visited Chambord for a time, 
fascinated by its host's charming mixture of ' Persian 
apparatus ' and downright simplicity. 

Maurice de Saxe never stopped dreaming till he died. 
As soon as the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, he 
asked to be made King of Madagascar. Finding that 
impracticable, he thought of making Tobago, in the 
Antilles, the nucleus of a Western Empire. He dreamt 
of sovereignty in Corsica — he dreamt of heading a 
crusade of Israelites to America. In the intervals of 



222 THE LOIRE 

these attractive visions, he always found time for fresh 
adventure nearer home. His love affair with Mile. 
Verri^res resulted in a daughter, named Marie Aurore, 
who became the mother of Georges Sand. Quite suddenly 
in November, 1750, France learnt that the great General 
was no more. . . . ' Life,' he said, as he lay djang, 
' is all a dream. Mine is short ; but it has been a good 
one.' " Thus characteristically he brought to a close a 
career which, as Mr. James has remarked with his usual 
felicity, " would have been longer had he been less 
determined to make it agreeable." 

Napoleon I gave Chambord to his Chief-of-Staff, 
Marshal Berthier, from whose widow it was bought 
by the nation in 1821 for the future Comte de 
Chambord. The place owes its preservation to royalist 
sentiment, for it has several times been threatened 
by owners who, in spite of rank and fortune, were 
unable to keep it up. Though empty and unin- 
habited, it is kept now in good repair. The famous 
lanterne, which bears high above the bewildering 
front of stonework, carved chimneys, turrets, and 
dormers, a colossal fieur de lis, still crowns the whole 
edifice. The interior is not of great interest ; though 
the double spiral staircase has been restored to its 
original form, and still forms the chief attraction, as it 
did in Evelyn's day. Evelyn descended the river by 
boat, stopping at a village called St. Dieu, where the 
party left their " barke " and " hired horses to Blois 
by the way of Chambourg, a famous house of the King's, 
built by Francis I in the middle of a solitary parke, 
full of deere ; the enclosure is a wall. I was particularly 
desirous," he says, "of seeing this palace from the ex- 



BLOIS 223 

travagance of the designe, especialy the stayre-case 
mentioned by Palladio. It is said that 1800 workmen 
were constantly employ'd in this fabric for twelve 
years : if so, it is wonderful! that it was not finish'd, 
it being no greater than divers gentlemen's houses in 
England, both for roome or circuit. The carvings are 
very rich and full. The stayre-case is devised with four 
entries or ascents, which cross one another, so that tho' 
four persons meete, they never come in sight, but by 
small loopeholes, till they land. It consists of 274 
stepps (as I remember), and is an extraordinary worke, 
but of far greater expense than use or beauty. The 
chimnys of the house appeare like so many towres." 

Some of the rooms, a very few out of the 440 which 
the palace numbers, contain furniture and works of 
art, in keeping with them ; and the private theatre in 
which Moliere gave the first performance of his Bourgeois 
Gentilhomme is, of course, preserved untouched. But, 
on the whole, human interest is lacking at Chambord. 
The effect of the great, gleaming white building, with 
its bewildering dark roofs, is a melancholy one ; the 
touch of madness in its conception disturbs. It is 
impossible to avoid the thought that the great artist 
who made this wondrous thing might have been better 
employed making something else, somewhere else. 
Chambord is an elaborate, exquisite " folly." But to 
visit it, when you are at Blois, is a hackneyed excursion 
which it is nevertheless unwise to " cut." 



CHAPTER XV 

CHAUMONT AND AMBOISE 

/~\NE more day I spent in Blois, before going on 
^-^ towards Tours. It was overpoweringly hot ; and 
I can recall nothing that I did save the discovery of 
what I was assured was a traditional song of the town. 
It was declared by my informant, a priest, to be con- 
nected only with a local tradition. There is no doubt, 
however, that other versions of the same idea are to 
be found in all folk-song throughout Europe, and it has 
points of similarity with our own " Lord Rendal." I 
give it for its own sake, as I have not yet come across 
it in print. 

" Quand Renaud de la guerre vint 
Portaut ses tripes dans ses mains, 
Sa mere a la fenetre en haut 
Dit V^oici venir mon fils Renaud. 

— Renaud, Renaud, rejouis-toi 

Ta femme est aceouche'e d'un roi. 
— Ni de ma femme, ni de mon fils 

Mon coeur ne pent se rejouir. 

Qu'on me fasse vite un lit blanc 
Pour que je m'y couche dedans — 
Et quand il fut mis dans le lit, 
Pauvre Henaud rendit I'esprit. 

— Or dites-moi, mere m'amie, 

Qu'est-ce que j'entends cogner ici ? 
Ma fille ce sont les charpentiers 
Qui raccomodeut les greniers. 
224 



CHAUMONT AND AMBOISE 225 

— Or dites-moij mere m'amie^ 

Qu'est-ce que j'entends chanter ici ? 

— Ma fille, ce sont les processions 
Qu'on fait autour de nos maisons. 

—Or dites-moi, mere m'amie, 

Quelle robe preiidrai-je aujourd'hui ? 

— Quittez le ros'^ prenez le j^ris^ 
Preuez le noir pour mieux choisir. 

— Or dites-moi, mere m'amie 

Qu'ai-je done a pleurer ici ? 
— Ma fille je ne puis plus vous readier ; 

Renaud est mort et enterre. 

Terre ouvre toi, terre fends toi 
Que je rejoigne Renaud mon roi ; 
Terre s'ouvrit, terre se fendit, 
Et la belle fut engloutie." 

I left Blois very early in the morning by train for 
Onzain, on the banks of the Cisse — a little river which, 
like so many of its affluents in Touraine and the Orlean- 
ais, runs parallel with the Loire, about a mile or two 
away from it. It debouches into the big river at Vouvray 
just above Tours. Onzain has not much interest now. 
The fine park of its chateau is still to be seen, but the 
house — where Voltaire was a visitor and where he 
wrote his feeble play " La Pucelle " — was sacked and 
destroyed at the Revolution. The chief importance of 
Onzain nowadays is that every tourist, save those who 
travel by automobile, alights at its station to visit 
Chaumont. Chaumont is about a mile away, across the 
long, uneven suspension bridge ; perfectly situated on 
a hill above the river, embowered in green, the green 
of grass and of trees, and with the few straggling houses 
of its village underneath it. It is a great gleaming 
palace, a medley of towers and turrets which group 
Q 



226 THE LOIRE 

beautifully together. But, alas, Chaumont, like Blois, 
has been despoiled of interest by the restorer. The 
nearer you get to it the more it takes on the appearance 
of the new Highland mansion of a millionaire, in the 
" Baronial " style ; its restoration makes it look like a 
modern imitation of itself. Mr. Henry James has 
described it as "a vast, clean-scraped mass, with big 
round towers ungarnished with a leaf of ivy or a patch of 
moss," which looks " rather like an enormously magni- 
fied villa." It is hard to people it — in imagination — 
with the figures of those who assuredly occupied it : 
Cardinal d'Amboise, Louis XII's Prime Minister ; 
Diane de Poitiers (who was forced by Catherine de 
Medicis to exchange Chenonceaux for it) ; and Catherine 
herself being among them. It is now the property of 
the Prince de Broglie-Say. 

The entrance is on the south side, over a drawbridge, 
and through a gateway flanked by swelling towers 
adorned with the initials of Louis XII and Anne de 
Bretagne. Once through the doors, you find yourself 
in the Cour d'Honneur, the most beautiful part of the 
castle, one of whose sides — that hiding the view over the 
Loire — was removed in the eighteenth century. The 
result of this alteration is a terrace from which is a 
haunting view across the great, island-studded river 
and the forests and woods of the Gatine. The 
latter, immortalised by Ronsard, who lived in it, is a 
rich district dotted with ancient houses and estates. 

Many times in the course of my journey through the 
Centre I had been warned that at Blois and in Touraine 
I should find myself in the jardin de la France! — a 
phrase, by the way, which may be traced to Rabelais. 



CHAUMONT AND AMBOISE 227 

I had looked forward to it with irritation, as one 
anticipates a meeting with people or places extrava- 
gantly praised in advance. At Vorey, Feurs, Roanne, 
Nevers, the innkeepers with one consent had warned 



V 










_ ,^^^ =^. .-.: ^^Kiiiiii^-c^"""^ 



^■m^^ 



-aisr 




The Cisse at Onzain 

me of the rich beauty of this very spot. And, oddly 
enough, they had not exaggerated. After the gorges of 
the Haute-Loire and the Forez I think that part of the 
river which lies between Blois and Vouvray is one of its 
most beautiful stretches. " La rive droite," writes 
Ardouin-Dumazet, " est une haute berge couronnee 



228 THE LOIRE 

par la foret. D'anciens logis, qui furent des gentil- 
hommieres ou des maisons des champs des notables 
d'autrefois, ont, entre leiirs jardins fleuris, une grace 
gentiment vieillotte. La grande route court au sommet 
de la levee ; a mi-c6te, le chemin de fer franchit les 
ravins par des ponts de pierre. Plus haut, entre les 
vignes, un joli chemin, en corniche, offre des vues 
superbes sur les forets et les lointains de la Sologne." 
This passage, of course, describes the view from the 
right bank, not that from the terrace of Chaumont, 
which, however, was hardly less splendid. The great 
point about these Loire landscapes, as a fellow-traveller 
remarked to me at Blois, is that they are so " large." 

Chaumont's fearful air of neatness and newness is 
the result, no doubt, of a too violent reaction from ill- 
treatment. Less than a century ago it was used as a 
factory for pottery and ceramics, conducted by an 
Italian named Nini. The potters were still at work 
when Benjamin Constant and Mme. de Stael came 
to live there after the latter's exile by Napoleon, to a 
distance of forty leagues from Paris. " J'aime mieux," 
she wrote, stately even in annoyance, " le ruisseau d'eau 
noire et bourbeuse que je voyais a Paris couler sous mes 
fenetres que cette Loire avec ses ondes claires et 
limpides." 

Amboise is about a dozen miles below Chaumont 
on the same side of the river. At Onzain it had seemed 
so perfect a day that I had decided to walk, and my 
belongings had been sent on. Now — so hot was the sun 
— I regretted my rashness. The road, however, following 
the river's course and winding along at the foot of vine- 
clad slopes, proved to be sufficiently beautiful to 



CHAUMONT AND AMBOISE 229 

make the heat just bearable. Pleasant villages sprang 
up at regular intervals, each with a shady cafe garden 
in which the wayfarer might rest : Pilly, Mosnes, Charge. 
On the right bank — across the great river, all streaked 
with yellow sand- banks — were more vines, varied by 
woods and the parks surrounding gracious chateaux. 
The real Touraine does not begin till the department of 
Loir-et-Cher is left for that of Indre-et-Loire, a mile or 
two below Chaumont. The chateau of Amboise domi- 
nates the country-side just like Chaumont, which, so far 
as situation goes, it resembles. But then Amboise is at 
once more attractive ; the little place laughs at you 
roguishly from under its great castle ; the whole picture 
is delicious and likeable ; and what comfort there was 
to be had in its inn ! In his book " A Little Tour in 
France," Mr. James has described the place as " A 
little white-faced town staring across an admirable 
bridge and leaning, as it v/ere, against the pedestal of 
rock on which the dark castle masses itself. The 
town is so small, the pedestal so big, and the castle so 
high and striking, that the clustered houses at the base 
of the rock are like the crumbs that have fallen from a 
well-laden table. You pass among them, however, to 
ascend by a circuit to the chateau, which you attack 
obliquely from behind." The chief feature of the castle 
is its great cylindrical tower, which flanks, on the north, 
the fa9ade facing the river. This is really the entrance 
to the chateau, for it contains, inside, a spiral roadway 
paved with red bricks, so gently sloped that a carriage 
or a motor-car can be driven to the top. Charles V, 
when he visited Francis I here in 1539, rode up it on 
horseback. 



230 THE LOIRE 

Amboise is full of historical memories, some of them 
as dark as any in French annals. The palace was built 
by Charles VIII on the site of the old feudal castle in 
which he was born ; and here he died in 1498, knocking 
his head against the lintel of a low stone doorway as he 
was running to pick up a tennis-ball. Historians 
describe this, I fancy, as a pleasing fiction, and assert 
that apoplexy was the more probable if less picturesque 
cause. Francis I, who contrived to lend some of the 
lustre of his personality to most of the houses in which 
he lived, conferred the distinction on Amboise of 
enshrining the remains of Leonardo da Vinci. He 
imported Leonardo, and gave him the house of Clos- 
Luce in the town to live in. Here the painter died in 
1519, but was buried in the castle, in the chapel of 
St. Florentin, now destroyed. In the religious struggles 
of the latter half of the sixteenth century the chateau 
of Amboise witnessed such horrible crimes that a blight 
since those days seems to have fallen upon it. In 
the courtyard, placid enough now, the bodies of those 
concerned in the conspiracy of La Renaudie were hung 
from the galleries. In 1560 Mary Stuart was forced 
by her redoubtable mother-in-law, Catherine de Medicis, 
to witness the wholesale execution of twelve hundred 
of those concerned in this plot to seize the person of 
the King. Heads cut from rebel bodies were piled on 
the balconies from which the view across the Loire 
is now so attractive ; the river itself was dotted with 
hundreds of corpses of Huguenots drowned in the 
noyades ; while from the branches of the trees all round 
the castle hung the bodies of conspirators. 

The palace became, when the Court had finally 



CHAUMONT AND AMBOISE 231 

deserted it, a State prison. But its worst fate befell it 
after the Revolution, when it became the property of the 
third Consul, Roger Ducos — a vandal who pulled down 
one part of the building and defaced the rest. Louis 
Philippe restored the chapel and built some vulgar 
apartments for the Algerian chief, Abd-el-Kader, who 
was confined at Amboise from 1847 to 1852. In 1872 
the National Assembly gave it back to the House of 
Orleans ; it is now used by the Due d'Orleans as an 
asylum for old servants of the family, and is always 
open to visitors. You tip a concierge who lives to the 
left of the entrance. 

The town — which has a faubourg on the He St. Jean 
in midstream and another on the right bank called 
St. Denis-Hors, the three parts being connected by a 
fine stone bridge — is placid enough at first sight, but is 
found on close inspection to have quite a commercial 
air. Various things are manufactured here, including 
fishing-rods and fishing-tackle, of which it boasts one 
of the largest factories in France. Architecturally, 
Amboise contains little of interest besides its chateau. 
The Hotel de Ville, near the bridge, dates from the 
beginning of the sixteenth century, but it has been 
restored with insufferable completeness. There is a 
good gateway, with a pointed arch and high-pitched 
roof surmounted by a lantern turret, and the Transi- 
tional Church of St. Denis is a fine building. From the 
top of the castle tower, however, and from the castle 
gardens, I had seen in the distance the twin towers of 
Tours Cathedral a dozen miles down the valley, and I 
was impatient to be gone. I must confess that I did not 
stop to visit the Pagode de Chanteloup, a tall tower, built 



232 THE LOIRE 

in stages diminishing in circumference — all that has sur- 
vived the destruction of the chateau of Chanteloup 
where the Due de Choiseul, Louis XV's minister, was 
exiled after his passage-at-arms with the great Dubarry. 
Choiseul built his pagoda as a memorial of the sympathy 
received by him from all sides, on the occasion of his 
fall. Napoleon gave the property to Chaptal, the 
scientist-politician, whom he created Comte de Chante- 
loup. Chaptal kept the title and sold the house to the 
" Bande Noire," who had it demolished in 1823. 

The most important place between Amboise and 
Tours is Vouvray, on the right bank of the river. It is 
renowned for its vineyards, which produce a white wine, 
not perhaps of the first rank of Loire wines, but not 
by any means to be despised. The vineyards of Vouvray 
produce also a sparkling wine, which the Tourangeaux 
patriotically profess to prefer to champagne. It is a 
sweet, fragrant little town, surrounded by charming 
country houses. But the most beautiful part of Vouvray 
is along the wooded banks of the Cisse, loveliest of 
gentle streams, which runs into the Loire just above the 
town. The Cisse is "boatable," not only for canoes, but 
for almost any type of river craft. 

The railway crosses the river above Vouvray and 
passes the village of Montlouis, on the left bank ; a 
place situated on a hill riddled with those troglodyte 
dwellings which are a feature of this part of the Loire 
valley. Evelyn, who passed through Montlouis on his 
way to Tours, remarks that it has "no house above 
ground, but such only as are hewn out of the maine 
rocks which are of excellent free-stone. Here and there 
the funnell of a chimny appears on the surface amongst 



CHAUMONT AND AMBOISE 



233 



the vineyards which are over them, and in this manner 
they inhabite the caves, as it were sea-cHffs, on one 
side of the river for many miles." The traveller to-day 
has no fault to find with the accuracy of this picture, 
though the church, not mentioned here, is perched on 






.xiS^^ 





The Cisse near Vouvray 



the top of a hill and commands a fine view of Tours. 
After passing Montlouis the train runs into the station 
of St. Pierre-des-Corps, just outside the town. Here, 
unless you are lucky enough to be in a through train, 
you must change into another, in order to reach the 
central station in the middle of the city. 



CHAPTER XVI 

TOURS 

rriOURS has an immense air of good breeding. 
-■- You feel it at once, as soon as you turn out of 
the great bare plain in front of the station into the 
Boulevard Heurteloup — immediately impressive with 
its lines of huge trees — towards the place du Palais 
de Justice. The traveller has only to sit for a few 
minutes outside the Cafe de I'Univers or the cafe 
that faces it, at the end of the Avenue de Grammont, 
to realise that here life is lived decently and in order. 
He finds himself reflecting on the repair or otherwise 
of his evening shirts, and noticing the well-cut tweed 
coats of the men and women who move among the 
trees in front of him, many of which hang from English 
shoulders. The place has entirely the atmosphere of a 
capital city. You expect the elegant carriage of a 
princess, drawn by admirable horses and attended by 
impassive servants, to cross the square amid a pleasant 
rustle and flutter of excitement. It is not, possibly, 
" smart " — the society of Tours : a step above that. 
You have visions of portentously dull entertainments 
in lofty, gilded saloons where everything is rather icily 
magnificent. But the fine flavour of that elaborate 
social structure which has the idea of monarchy for 

234 



TOURS 235 

its foundation, is apparent at once. Tours is what 
Orleans ought to be, and is not. 

Writer after writer describes the cleanness of Tours 
and the whiteness of its houses. A gentleman of 
quality of the eighteenth century notes the careful 
washing of its roads with " water supplied by six 
beautiful fountains which keeps continually running 
through them from different quarters." Evelyn admires 
the place immensely. " No citty in France," he says, 
" exceeds it in beauty or delight." He finds the streets 
" very long, straite, spacious, well-built, and exceeding 
cleane." His description of the Mall, which I did not 
succeed in discovering, is so true of so many tree-shaded 
avenues in towns on the Loire that I quote it : " The 
Mall without comparison is the noblest in Europe for 
length and shade, having seven rows of the tallest and 
goodliest elms I had ever beheld, the innermost of which 
do so embrace each other, and at such a height, that 
nothing can be more solemn and majestical." The 
Queen of England came to Tours when he was there, 
" going for Paris," and " was very nobly receiv'd by the 
People and the Cleargy, who went to meete her with 
the trained bands." Tours in Evelyn's time was at the 
height of its splendour. He refers to the " very con- 
siderable trade with silk-wormes " and the various 
processes in the manufacture of silk, which he witnessed. 
This trade was in the hands of the Huguenots, and 
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685 — 
that act so disastrous to French commerce — the town 
lost much of its prosperity and many of the best of its 
inhabitants. It has hardly now, though gaining yearly 
in importance, succeeded in recapturing the position 



236 THE LOIRE 

among French cities which it enjoyed in the seventeenth 
century. 

Mr. James's readers will not forget the little pencil 
sketch he has made of it : " It is a very agreeable 
little citj' ; few toAvns of its size are more ripe, more 
complete, or, I should suppose, in better humour with 
themselves and less disposed to envy the responsi- 
bilities of bigger places. It is truly the capital of its 
smiling province ; a region of easy abundance, of 
good living, of genial, comfortable, optimistic, rather 
indolent opinions." 

It is quite wonderful how Tours assimilates and keeps 
in their place those ubiquitous green Homburg hats, and 
the costly touring cars of their owners. These cars are 
for ever snorting with a kind of majestic slowness up 
and down the long, absolutely straight central artery 
which begins on the south side of the Avenue de Gram- 
mont, crosses the Place du palais de Justice, and becomes 
the rue Nationale. This pompous and not pleasing 
eighteenth-century main street crosses the heavy Pont 
de Tours and climbs the wooded hill of St.Symphorien. 
Tours must be tremendously " on the way " to places 
where the world amuses itself, and it is surprising how 
strong the " English " impression still is ; like the 
royalist. At the time when I first became aware of it, 
outside the Cafe de I'Univers, I knew nothing of the 
history of the town. Guide-books, consulted since, 
reveal the fact that Henry II added it to the English 
crown, and that it was not restored to France until 
1242, after which date it became a favourite residence 
of the French kings from Louis IX to Fran9ois I. 

The English connection with the place seems from 



TOURS 237 

very early times to have been strong. Even the cathedral 
is said to have been built in part by English artisans. 
In the seventeenth century it was of all French towns 
perhaps the one most frequently visited by English 
travellers. A seventeenth-century English country 
squire, Sir G. Courthope, for instance, mentions in his 
diary that he chose it to stay in in order to study the 
language. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
it was one of the recognised points in the " Grand 
Tour " undertaken to complete the education of 
persons of quality ; and in the nineteenth century, 
indeed until the sudden vogue of the Riviera, 
there was a permanent English colony of over 2000 
people in the town. It used to be largely recom- 
mended by English doctors, owing to the agreeable 
nature of its climate and situation, for persons suffering 
from chest affections. Nowadays it is one of the 
greatest tourists' centres in France for English and 
Americans, nearly all the more celebrated chateaux of 
the Loire being within an easy distance of it. 

On the whole — to the sentimentalist sensitive to 
impressions — the French Republic makes a bad show 
at Tours. It has not acquired that trick of dignity — 
legacy of the ages — which the royal city so gracefully 
wears. Its new Hotel de Ville, of gleaming white stone, 
is sumptuous, ornate, imposing, if you like, but alto- 
gether lacking in style. In a country so full of fine 
palaces of honourable age, this affair looks dreadfully 
bourgeois. Four large carved figures of nude labourers, 
crushed under enormous burdens, are to be seen over 
the three central entrances of the building, supporting 
the long stone balcony. They seem, those four helpless 



288 THE LOIRE 

ouvncrs, like so ninny Atlases to bo bearing almost the 
whole Aveio-lit of the henA'V, o\er-deeornted Repnblieau 
moimnient on their boMod shoulders. What an oppor- 
tunity is there for the acid humour of ''L'Assiette au 
Bein-re ! ■' 

The Republic has rcchristened the rue Royale the 
rue Natiouale. It was at Number 30, a house now occu- 
pied by a dentist and adorned with an inscription, that 
the great toiiriuii^raii, Ralzac, was born in 1709. 
Thanks to him, few towns and districts in France have 
a more endiu'ing place in literature. How often has he 
described the city and the country surrounding it in 
sucli stories as " La Grenadi^re," " Le Lys dans la 
Valine," " Le Cur6 de Tours " ; and the essential charac- 
teristics of the touraugrauA\ are they not shown with a 
Rabelaisian hmuour in the collection of stories having 
their scenes in the chateaux of the neighbom-liood, which 
he called " Contes Drolatiques " ? The toitran^rau and 
especially the tour angelic, he would have us know, love 
the best of everything, are rich feeders, appreciating 
all the delights of the table — are artists in all thai is 
indicated by the term " good living." 

I had spent quite two days in Tours before I could 
rouse myself to explore it. I had sunk into my hotel — 
an old-fashioned, quiet place, surrounding a discreet 
courtyard — as into a feather bed. The caf^ of caf^s — 
whose little tables spread themselves right on to and 
over a tree-shaded island in the middle of the road, 
and surrounded a. statue of Balzac — was merely round 
the corner. At night, for dissipation's sake, I used to 
cross sometimes from this caf ^ to the one opposite, which 
also spread itself out under another group of trees, and 



TOURS 289 

had the additional advantaf^e of a red-coated orchestra, 
whose leader was blessed wiUi a. powerful tenor voice. 
I can see him vividly, standing up outside the brilliantly 
lighted rrjorn, baeiced by tlie open grand piano, throw- 
ing ()\il his arms with thrilling gestures. His great 
voice came across to me as J sat under the shadow of 
an erjormous elm, came througli the warm, night air in 
all the sensuous appeal of the hackneyed love song: "O 
sole rnio." The familiar tune has never sounded quite 
so passionate to me before or since. 

When I at length managed to rouse myself from the 
eomfortafjje lethargy into which the mere fact of being 
in Tours had thrown me, I was appalled by the number 
of things to see. "i'he picture postcard shops, faithful 
indications of a tf^wn's attractions, were bristling with 
chateaux, towers, cathedrals, churches, old houses, 
scenery. 1'he agonies which the earnest Cookite, 
anxious to " do " everything in eight days, must endure, 
were too horrible to ef>ntemplate. Among the cljateaux, 
I studied [photographs of Chenonceaux (which Diane de 
Poitiers had. to exchange for Chaumont), Azay-le 
Rideau, fabled Chinon on the Vienne nine miles above 
its Junction with the Loire, and Loches, where Agnes 
Sorel, la " lielle des Relies," was buried. The body of 
the beautiful mistress of Charles VII, who inspired him 
to light against the P^nglish, and whose memory, like 
that of our own Nell Owynn, is justly beloved, does not 
lie at Loches now. Ifer marbJf; tomb still remains 
{vide Joanne) in the church of SL fJurs, but the Canons 
objecting to her on accoiint of her sins, an objection 
still fierce and burning after over three centuries, got 
leave from Louis XVI to open the tomb and remove 



240 THE LOIRE 

her unfortunate remains. Other places which, like 
Loches, I explored in imagination were Chateaudun, 
Montrichard, a great square keep above the Cher, and 
the ruined chateau of St. Aignan. There, indeed, they 
all were ; but with a sigh of relief, not unmixed with a 
hungry glance or two at Loches, I realised that hardly 
any of them was on the Loire, and that I should not be 
forced to visit them for my vow's sake. In Tours itself 
there was enough to see, in all conscience. 

The cathedral of St. Gatien, which was the objective 
of my first walk of exploration, is on the left of the rue 
Nationale, at the end of the rue Scellerie — a very 
attractive and harmonious Gothic building, with an 
elaborate fa9ade flanked by two imaginative towers that 
rise in stages and are topped by curious Renaissance 
domes. Its situation, hemmed in by narrow streets, is 
unusual, and it seems to jump suddenly up at you ; to be 
always round the corner ; to greet you abruptly from 
whatever side you may approach it. And almost at 
no point can you stand right back and observe it from a 
distance. The narrow and very quiet streets press 
closely in upon it, except on the western side, where 
it faces its little square. 

The church was a long time in the making, but it is, 
all of it, sufficiently old to have blended. The present 
cathedral is a rebuilding dating from 1225, and in- 
corporating some portions of an older church that was 
burnt down in 1164 as the result of a quarrel between 
Louis VII of France and Henry II of England. The 
choir was finished in 1265, and contains some magnificent 
contemporary glass ; the latest part of the work was 
not completed till 1547. In the first chapel on the 



TOURS 241 

right of the choir is Ihr- most charming of the church's 
monuments, the white marble torrjb of Anne da 
Bretagne's two children by her first husband, Charles 
VIII. I'he little boy and girl are seen lying side by 
side on a black marble slab, watched over at head 
and foot by a pair of kneeling angels : and the whole 
is a most beautiful piece of work by the celebrated 
sculptor of Tours, Michel Colomb. It was put here in 
1815, after the destruction of the church of St. Martin, 
where it rested originally. Another very attractive 
feature of St. Gatien is the old cloister of the singing 
school (Psalette), reached through a door in the north 
transept. It is a peaceful place, nestling under the 
sheer walls of the cathedral, with a little garden in the 
midst of it and a charming turret in one corner, enclosing 
a spiral staircase winding up to a low, open gallery. 

Close to the cathedral is the municipal collection of 
pictures — more beautifully housed than any provincial 
collection that I have seen. It has lately been distri- 
buted through the stately apartments of the Archev^che, 
whose northern windows look on to the southern side 
of the cathedral, and whose southern windows ad- 
mire a formal garden enclosed by a high stone wall. 
The entrance to the Archeveche is through the black 
doors of an elaborate Ionic gateway, reconstructed 
from the materials of a dernolis?ied Arc de Triomphe. 
I do not remember that among the pictures in the 
stately archiepiscopal apartments there is anything of 
particular interest ; but the rooms themselves are all 
beautiful, and some contain excellent furniture in keep- 
ing with them. The one I recall most clearly is the 
state bedroom, which has two exquisite pieces of 



242 THE LOIRE 

framed Gobelins tapestry (by Gozette after Drouais le 
Fils). 

Perhaps a finer church even than the cathedral must 
have been the vast Basilica of St. Martin, of which two 
isolated towers are all that remains. Their distance 
from one another is a sufficient indication of the im- 
mense size of the building. It was pillaged by the 
Huguenots during the religious wars and suffered 
damage, but it was reserved for the " Futurist " enthu- 
siasm of the First Republic to demolish it altogether — 
to make way for a street ! This public work was 
accomplished in 1802. 

The precise rue Nationale ends in a flourish with 
two large buildings that exactly balance one another, 
and face two formal gardens, in front of the river, 
between which begins the massive Pont de Tours. 
The left-hand building is the Mairie, that on the right 
the Natural History Museum. They have a certain 
splendour, these two buildings, especially when viewed 
from the faubourg of St. Symphorien on the other 
side of the river. In front of them rest the long steam 
trams that start for Vouvray, Rochecorbon, and 
Luynes ; and in the gardens are statues of two geniuses, 
poles asunder in temperament, yet both essentially 
Gallic and both sons of Touraine — Rabelais opposite 
the Mairie and Descartes opposite the Musie. 

I have mentioned the principal sights of Tours in 
this order because I happened to see them thus on the 
first of the days that I devoted to exploration. Subse- 
quently I wandered altogether at haphazard : without 
looking even at the picture postcard shops to see what I 
should see. Chance, for instance, brought me one day 



TOURS 243 

to the fantastically named Maison de Tristan I'Hermite 
in the rue Bri9onnet. It was not built till long after 
Louis XI's myrmidon was in his grave, but is no less 
interesting on that account. It is a beautiful brick 
house with elaborately carved stone facings, and its 
facade masks a charming courtyard. 

A more interesting memory than that of Louis XI's 
hangman which Tours recalls is that of the accomplished 
and beautiful Mile. La Valliere — the first and best of the 
Grand Monarque's three celebrated mistresses — who was 
born here. She seems to have loved Louis sincerely, 
and to have remarked "What a pity he is a king" 
from the bottom of her heart. All she cared about was 
to be near him and to please him, and when Madame de 
Montespan supplanted her, her grief was so overpower- 
ing that she thought she should die of it. Even in her 
repentance she seems (unlike Madame de Montespan) 
to have been as sincere as her affection for her royal 
lover was genuine ; so much so that the outspoken 
Bossuet remarked of her, " This soul will be a miracle of 
grace." I do not know whether this attractive woman's 
birthplace is still pointed out — in any case I did not see 
it — but it was pleasant to think that her dainty feet had 
trodden the quiet streets by the cathedral. 

There are some interesting old houses in the place 
Foire le Roi, near the Quays. Most of the old part 
of the town, however, which still remains, is to be 
found on the left side of the rue Nationale, down the 
rue du Commerce, and in the narrow streets near the 
two great towers of St. Martin's Church. At the corner 
of the rue du Change and the rue de la Monnaie is a 
gabled house adorned with elaborate wood-carvings ; 



244 THE LOIRE 

and close to it, in the place de Chateauneuf, is an old 
stone inn with curious turrets and gables — ^the Hotel 
de la Croix Blanche. 

The excursions by tramway that may be made from 
Tours seem endless, and I do not profess to have made 
them all. I spent a pleasant day, however, on the Cher, 
at St. Avertin — gentle village nestling under wooded 
slopes, two miles to the south of Tours. The Cher is a 
placid stream which dawdles along in no hurry to join 
the Loire — a meeting which, by the way, it postpones 
until it gets to Cinq-Mars. Other excursions are to 
Plessis-les-Tours, about a mile and a quarter to the 
left of the town, midway between the Loire and the 
Cher ; and, upstream, on the right bank, to Marmoutier 
and Rochecorbon. The former, it must be admitted, 
is not at all worth seeing. A better plan for getting an 
idea of Louis XI's great stronghold is to read two 
chapters of " Quentin Durward " in your favourite cafe, 
and not to visit it. The fragment that remains is a 
single wing of red brick with new stone window-frames. 
It contains the " alleged " room in which Louis XI died 
in 1483 ; but the building has, of course, been restored 
out of any interest which it may once have possessed. 
There is no suggestion now of those " pretty gardens 
full of nightingales " mentioned by Evelyn, nor of the 
chapel in which Ronsard was buried. 

The abbey of Marmoutier is far more worth a visit. 
It nestles under a cliff, in which were the grottoes 
where St. Martin and St. Gatien used to retire to 
pray, and though amid the remains of the old abbey a 
modern convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart 
has been erected in the most debased style of sixty 



TOURS 245 

years ago, there is still much of interest. Further on, 
on the " precipice of a dreadfull cliff, from whence the 
country and river yeald a most incomparable prospect," 
are the ruins of the fortress of Rochecorbon, the chief 
feature of which is the lanterne, or watch tower, like an 
enormous and very high square chimney, which looks 
out over the Loire. 

Tours rewards the strenuous sight-seer with infinite 
opportunities for rest. The cafes are arranged to face 
one another, thus affording the lounger the greatest 
possible amount of diversion with the minimum of 
trouble. At the bridge end of the rue Nationale, for 
instance, you either sit outside the Cafe du Commerce 
and watch the people sitting outside the Cafe de la 
Ville, or you sit outside the Cafe de la Ville and watch 
the habitues sweetening their yellowish-green poison 
outside the Cafe du Commerce. Drinking Pernod in 
the sunlight in preparation for large and sumptuous 
meals, reading " L'lllustration " and watching the 
passers-by, is not, however, an occupation that quite 
never wearies. The sun, for instance, was insufferably 
hot, and sent one in search of a school of natation. 
(Why French people, when they want to swim, must 
always do so in an ecole is a mystery which persons 
better acquainted with the nuances of the language 
must explain.) I found what I wanted on the wooded 
He Aucard, reached by a suspension bridge — the highest 
upstream of the three bridges of Tours — to cross 
which a toll of a sou is charged. To reach the bathing- 
place you walk through the Pre Catalan, a charming, 
shady spot laid out with tennis-lawns — a kind of 
provincial He de Puteaux. The row of dressing-sheds 



246 THE LOIRE 

looks on to a strip of warm, sandy beach. Part of the 
river has been marked off where the current (though 
swift) is not too swift ; and the result is one of the 
most delightful, verdant bathing-places that I have 
ever seen. It is as cheerful as the sea, and yet as well 
furnished with trees (in the background) as Parson's 
Pleasure. The water was so warm that one could stay 
in comfortably for an hour ; and the current allowed 
one to be either lazy or strenuous, as one's mood 
dictated. One could either get in at the top and float 
down with the stream to the end, or get in at the bottom 
and swim hard against the stream to the top. In be- 
tween times nothing could be more agreeable than a 
cigarette in the sunshine on the sandy beach, with the 
twin towers of the cathedral standing up, fiowerlike, 
in the distance. 

Tours, as I look back, seems to be a place undisturbed 
by shouting ; it attracts by its mellow, gently modulated 
tones ; it is soothing, luxurious, kindly, humorous, 
and yet splendid. My last memory of it is the most 
soothing of all. I was strolling at random down a 
quiet street at the back of the cathedral when I saw a 
woman sitting on the doorstep of a house, in the dying 
rays of the sun, crooning over the baby in her lap : 

" Dodo, petite, 
Dodo, mon ange ! 
Dans la grange 
O y a une poule blanche 
Qui va pondre un p'tit coco, 
Pour la petite. 
Si alle est sage ! " 



CHAPTER XVII 

FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 

rriHE soft richness of the landscape seemed actually 
-■- to increase below Tours. Abrupt cliffs, crowned 
often with trees, form the right bank ; on the left lie 
wide, green pastures and gracious woods. By the time 
the frontier of Anjou is reached, below Langeais and 
below the junction of the great river Vienne with the 
Loire, that "doulceur angevine" of which Joachim du 
Bellay has written so often, has been joyfully appre- 
ciated. Luynes, the first spot of interest as you descend 
the river, about six miles below Tours and joined with 
it by a steam tramway, is a curious little place dominated 
by its historic chateau, half fortress and half dwelling- 
house. At Montlouis I had seen a village of cave- 
dwellers ; here was a veritable town of them. The 
cliff beneath which Luynes shelters is positively honey- 
combed with grottoes. 

It has the reputation of being a very merry place ; 
its young men and maidens have always been given to 
dancing and singing, and it was for the youth of Luynes 
that, three generations back, Paul Louis Courrier made 
his celebrated " Petition pour les villageois qu'on 
empeche de danser." It is not solely the young people, 
it should be remarked, who are fond of dancing. " Gay 
grandsires " also like to foot it. Perhaps Goldsmith 

247 



248 THE LOIRE 

was thinking of this part of the world when he wrote in 
" The Traveller " : 

"• How often have I led tliy sportive choir, 
"W^ith tuneless pipe beside the murmuring Loire, 
Where shading elms along the margin grew, 
And freshened from the wave the zephyr flew ! 
And haply — though my harsh touch, falt'ring still, 
But mocked all tune, and marred the dancer's skill — 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power. 
And dance, forgetful of the noon-tide hour. 
Alike all ages : dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze ; 
And the gay grandsire, skilled in gestic lore. 
Has frisked beneath the burden of threescore." 

The mixture of caution and joyousness in the pea- 
sant character is shown in the popular song, " A la 
St. Jean je m'accueillis " (On the feast of St. Jean I 
hired myself to a farm). 

" A la St. Jean je m'accueillis, 
Je n'y fus qu'un jour et demi. 
Allons, allons, allons tre'tous, 
Quand je ne puis couri' je vole, 
Quand je ne puis voler je cours. 

Je n'y fus qu'un jour et demi 
Que mon pere m'envoya queri 
Allons, etc. 

Par mon frere le plus petit ; 
C'etait pour me donner mari. 
Allons, etc. 

C'etait pour me donner mari, 
M'en a donne' deux a choisir, 
Allons, etc. 

M'a donne' le pere et le fils, 
Oh ! devinez lequel je pris. 
Allons, etc. 



FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 249 

Je pris le pere et le fils laissi, 
Pour un p'tit d'argent que j'y vis^ 
Allons, etc. 

Je voudrais qu'il fut un edit, 
D'ecorcher tous les vieux maris. 
Aliens^ etc. 

J'ecorcli'rais le mien tout en vie, 
Port'rais sa peau vendre a Paris. 
AllonSj etc. 

A deux liards la peau du clieti, 
Encore prenez-la y'a cre'dit. 
AllonSj allons, allons^ tretous, 
Quand je ne puis couri' je vole^ 
Quand je ne puis voler je cours." 

Luynes is one of a number of towns in France which 
have been rebaptised on falHng into the hands of new 
lords. Formerly it was called Maille, and belonged to 
a Comte de Maille, till it was acquired by the Proven§al 
adventurer, Charles Albert de Luynes, who became 
Constable of France in 1621 and enjoyed the favouritism 
of Louis XIII. Louis gave him this property and 
made him a duke. 

The appearance of the castle is in the highest degree 
warlike and romantic. The fayade it presents to the 
Loire is broken by a number of powerful round towers 
capped with pointed roofs, has few windows, and seems 
to frown and to command. Behind this front, however, 
is an elegant Renaissance wing. The house is in good 
preservation, and yet mellow, for, like Cheverny, it 
has had the rare advantage of having always been 
occupied, and its owner is the present bearer of the 
title, the Due de Luynes. The village proper is at the 
foot of the castle, and consists of the cave-dwellings 



250 



TITF T.OirxE 



in the cliff. Tnotitioncd above, and a "heart " forn\ed 
by a niiiubev of old hoiu^es, most of >vhieh. like the 
hospital, date arehiteetiirally from the Uennseencc. 
The eluneh is more aneieiit, ami has a luMiiauesiiue 
doonvay. After the eastle. however, the iwost 
singular monument in Luynes is a long range of 
ruined arelnvavs, son\e distance behind the to^^•n, the 
















|\- 






The Chateau, l.u^nos 

remains of a Ciallo-Konian aqueduct >vhich brought 
water to Tours from the springs of La Fie-noirc, 

The nearest raihvay station to Lu)nes on the line 
Paris-Nantes is Savonnieres. a village on the Cher, 
reached from Luynes by a not much used ferry. A 
certain number of visitors. ho\vever. en\[^loy it — as I 
did — to enable them to go from Luynes to \'illandry, 
near Savonnieres. one of the least kno>\n but not least 
charming of the Loire chateaux. The huge palace has 



FROM I'OTJRS TO SAUMUR 251 

suffered considerafjic changes, and almost Ihc only 
part that remains in its original state is ttic higJi, square, 
fourteenth-century tower which dominates the whole 
pile. The central block and tlie wings, though dating 
from the best epoch, 1540, have been disfigured by 
late eighteenth-century alterations, and the appearance 
of the house has been quite changed by formal terraces, 
balconies, and great vases in the classical style. Like 
Luynes, the chateau had an earlier name (before 1619) — 
Colombiers — under which it has its place in history, 
for the older fortress which it replaced was the spot 
where Henry II of England and Philip Augustus of 
France concluded peace in 1189. 

The Park of Villandry, and its gardens, cover the 
lovely slopes above the Cher, which narrows its channel 
just above its confluence with the Loire opposite Cinq- 
Mars. From it the three chateaux, Langcais, Cinq-Mars, 
and Luynes, are visible, and the landscape is one of the 
richest and most distinguished in Touraine. 

Savonnieres itself (where the station is) is a delightful 
village on the Cher, which is broad here and divided by 
a barrage. It lurks under richly wooded slopes and 
has a church with an English-looking spire. The lions 
of the village now, as in Evelyn's day, who mentions 
them, arc the caves gouttieres (or dropping caves) which 
I did not examine. 

From the little station of Savonnieres I took train for 
Cinq-Mars, five miles off. Tliis is a large village, quite 
an important centre of the wine trade, which, like Luynes, 
has many of its dwellings carved out of the cliff. 
Like Luynes also, it is memorable for its connection 
with a favourite of Louis XIII — Henri d'Efliat, 



252 THE LOIRE 

Marquis de Cinq-Mars — the ruins of whose chateau 
dominate the railway and the long village street. Cinq- 
Mars — whom one remembers chiefly as the hero of 
Alfred de Vigny's novel of that name, " read in 
schools " — must have been a less shrewd person even 
than the Due de Luynes. He had the bad judgment to 
conspire with Gaston d'Orleans against Richelieu, 
whose protege he was. Not content with having the 
young man's head cut off at Lj^ons in 1642, the Iron 
Cardinal dismantled Cinq-Mars castle as well, as an 
additional mark of infamy. 

G. P. R. James' forgotten novel, " Richelieu," gives 
a vivid account of the conspiracy. On the whole the 
most perfidious part was played by Gaston d'Orleans — 
" Monsieur," brother of Louis XIII — whose peculiarity 
it always was in his conspiracies to sacrifice his friends. 
The brilliant death of Cinq-Mars and his friend, de Thou, 
arrested with him ; his youth, wit, and personal 
comeliness, have combined to invest his personality 
with a strong romantic interest. He died, we are told, 
" with astoundingly great courage, and did not waste 
time in speechifying ; he would not have his eyes 
bandaged, and kept them open when the blow was 
struck." Grand Equerry of France at nineteen, he 
was executed in his twenty-third year. The death of 
de Thou was, if anything, more courageous still ; a 
courage, perhaps, in both cases, bred of a prodigious 
vanity. 

Luckily Richelieu did his work of demolition so 
thoroughly that not even French restorers have re- 
stored Cinq-Mars. It is frankly a ruin, picturesque 
and stimulating like most ruins, and new constructions 



FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 253 

have not deprived the site of all the interest of historical 
association. Two great crenellated towers on the 
side of a hill, irregularly pierced with windows, en- 
circled by strong ramparts and flanked on one side by 
a wood, are all that now remain. They rise above the 
village very bold and fierce, and look across a great 
green plain — swept evidently by the Loire in its flood- 
times — out of which on the other side of the railway 
line rises a clump of dark trees of a great height. At 
the foot of these trees is a reedy swamp. 

About a mile to the east of the village, on the cliff 
overlooking the He Cesar, and opposite the bee du Cher, 
is the curious " Pile de Cinq-Mars." This is a solid tower, 
ninety-five feet high and fifteen feet in diameter, 
topped with small pyramids at each angle, about which 
archaeologists dispute with heat. Its origin is almost 
certainly Roman, and some have considered it to be a 
funeral monument, others a kind of lighthouse for 
vessels sailing up the river, to warn them of the em- 
bouchure of the Cher. 

It hardly matters, for the old tower is certainly 
an admirable " feature " in a beautiful landscape. 

The distance between Cinq-Mars and Langeais 
cannot be more than three miles, and even a slow train 
takes little longer than ten minutes in covering it. 
In that short space of time, however, or in far less, 
for the actual vision was gone in a few seconds, I 
passed through one of the most vivid emotions that I 
can remember. There are not many things quite so heady 
as colour. The sun, undisturbed by its efforts during the 
past month, was shining as serenely as ever, blazing 
down on the splendid landscape, making the white roads 



254 THE LOIRE 

whiter, the tree-trunks in shadow blacker, and the 
broad fields a more brilliant green. We caine soon 
to a field of young corn, and as I looked out of the 
window at the distant Loire I found my ej^'es all at once 
dazzled by a sudden riot of colour : scarlet poppies 
and blue cornflowers, all in a setting of the brightest 
green. The effect of it was intoxicating, and in- 
stinctively one held one's breath. It was like some 
vivid picture by the most daring of post-impressionists, 
a picture that one was actually in. The headiness of 
it was almost suffocating, making one dizzy with a 
weird kind of sensuous delight. 

Langeais attracts at once with its proper little square, 
its band-stand, and its neat houses, surrounding the 
fine chateau whose entrance is right in the middle of 
the town. The entrance gate, which opens between two 
beautiful towers with pointed " tops," supported by 
machicolated galleries, the other towers, the tall chim- 
neys, and the steep slate-covered roofs combine to 
give the chateau a very picturesque air. The house was 
reconstructed in the middle of the sixteenth century 
by Jean Bourre on the site of an older fortress 
built by Pierre de la Brosse. This individual was a 
favourite of Philippe le Hardi, and the scandalous 
haste with which he enriched himself roused the resent- 
ment and jealous}^ of the other courtiers, who succeeded 
in getting him hanged for his frauds. Jean Bourre 
respected the main outlines of his predecessor's design, 
but grafted on to the fortress an elegant chateau m the 
taste of the Renaissance : a proceeding which gave the 
house originality and charm. It was reserved for M. 
Jacques Siegfried — of whom one must say nothing rash, 



FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 



255 



for he died in the odour of sanctity, having left the 
whole property, its grounds and contents, to the 




The Chateau, Langeais 

Institut dc France — to restore the house back, at least 
in the interior, to the earlier style of Pierre de la Brosse. 
The chief historic interest that the chateau boasts 



250 TllK LOIUK 

lios in tho f:u«l I hat it was horo tl\nl Clmrlos VTTI 
woddoil Anno o{ l>rill{my. The ch\hovi\[c-\M\\lcri\cd 
o'nrdoiis on llir south sido oi Ihc house iwc ivniarknblo. 

The position {on the [o\) ol" the cHfl') which Lnnj^vais 
wouKl naturally have tu'eufuod, is IUUhI already hy ji 
still earlier stroui^hoUl a rin'taui^nlar donji>n tlanked 
>vith ramjiarts : ono of th(> t>arlii>st huiUhnos of its kind 
whieh ha\ e survived in Franec*. 'I'he donjon and ramparts 
are aitrilnitiHl to the l>laek Kaleon, Foulqnes Nerra, 
threat eonstruettM* oi feuilal fortresses, and 01)2 is said 
to be the \ear of its erection. These niins are now 
in the {virk t^f the chateau, and from them one may 
K>ok down at the little town clustering- round the 
mansion, and at the church. The latter was beoim 
in the eleventh C(Mitury, and its beautiful belfry is 
attributed to the Kn^lish, who are supposed ti> have 
built it during' their lU'cujiatiou o( the country, before the 
l\[aid turned them onl of it, 

liani^eais has (|uite a ei>nsitlerable commercial activity. 
It is the centre for the rich territories of l.es Varennes — 
"waste-lands" no longer, Tt has potteries and busy 
workshops, ami is tlu> markel-tt)\\u lor the surroundinij; 
district : w hile along the slopes of the hills, whieh, as 
far as St. Patrice, are separatetl noAV cmly by a narrow 
strip of alluvial ground from the river, the melons for 
which Langeais has U>ug been fauunis (its anus are three 
melons), are successfully cultivated. 

Opposite Ivnpnanne, where the first channel of the 
ludre joins the LiMre, the line of hills turns inland 
and ileserts the right bank of the river, and there begins 
a [)laiu, growing witler .and wider in extent, which 
stretches into the tlepartmenl of IMaiue-el -Loire, after 



FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 257 

enshrining Uic ]\l\,\(: lown of iioijrf.y;ui), und becomes 
the famous "Valine d'Anjou." The door of this very- 
rich, fertile district is at the villaj/e of St. Patrice, five 
and a half miles below Langeais, wbieh is dominated 
by the chdteau of Rochecotte. 'J'be interest of Roche- 
cotte, which is a beautiful enough house, lies in its 
collection of relics and documents belonging to Talley- 
rand. The property was acquired by his niece, the 
late Duchesse de JJino, whose fascinating memoirs 
have recently been published in an English translation. 
In the park is a celebrated blackthorn which flowers in 
December. It is said that St. Patrick first worked the 
miracle when he passed through Rochecotte, and that 
the tree has repeated it every year since. 

From St. Patrice to Bourgeuil the main road, which 
turns inland, following the hill, is little more than one 
long straggling village inhabited by vine-dressers. And 
the other routes along the river-side are equally popu- 
lous. All under the lev^e which protects the country 
between St. Patrice and Port-Boulet, from the Loire, 
are hamlets, connected by ferries with les Varennes, the 
waste-lands traversed t>y the Indre. The population of 
these lowlands — ttirough which wander the old channel 
of the Cher, and the Indre, protected by huge banks from 
the floods of the Loire — are a distinct and interesting 
race. The cultivation of the hemp which forms the 
wealth of the district seems to have tiad its effect on 
the inhabitants. They lack altogether the gaiety of the 
vine-dressers and fruit-growing peasants who live on the 
higher ground ; a fact which may perhaps be due to the 
damp, rather feverish nature of their climate. The 
dwellers in the Varennes, particularly those of Br(;hd- 



258 



THE LOIRE 



mont and the neighbouring villages of Liguieres and 
la Chapelle-aux-Naux, are the butt of the more pleasantly 
placed vignerons. When these want to insult a man 
and call him a fool they say, " II est de Brehemont." 

The spade is the indispensable instrument for the 
inhabitants of the Varennes, and with it they dig over 
the fertile fields in which is grown the finest hemp in 



'I 







The Loire at Port-Boulet 

France. The ground is divided up into the tiniest 
plots, not large enough to allow the use of the plough. 
The spade, therefore, is necessary, and it is very large 
and of a peculiar shape, which demands a specially 
heavy sabot, so soon does its " shoulder " wear a groove. 
This sabot is only worn in the fields, which is the reason 
why the peasant is seen walking to work bearing, in 
addition to the heavy spade, a trident, on the teeth 



FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 259 

of which the wooden shoes are stuck. Other and 
lighter sabots form the ordinary footgear ; but in order 
not to wear these out the peasants often prefer to walk 
barefooted, carrying them in their hands. The fine 
sand of the soil renders this not unpleasant. The 
women of the district are not less hard-working than 
the men. " Elles se tuent a force de travailler," says 
the authority from whom these facts are taken. " Elles 
bechent, s'en vont queri au loin et portent sur leur dos 
toute la nourriture de leurs vaches, fourrages ou racines. 
Au point du jour, on les voit partir, en jupe courte, sur 
le dos une hotte, a la main un lourd baton qui joue un 
r61e considerable. Sans ce baton, la paysanne des 
Varennes ne serait pas complete. C'est son aide in- 
dispensable. Quand la hotte est chargee d'herbes 
fraiches, de navets et de choux, il ne serait pas facile de 
se lever. La paysanne saisit alors son baton, s'appuyant 
dessus a la fa9on de primates, et, s'agenouillant, par- 
vient, a se relever grace a cet appui. La hotte a survecu 
alors que les autres traditions disparaissaient. Seules, les 
femmes d'un certain age ont conserve I'ample manteau 
a capuchon, rabattu sur les yeux, jadis d'un usage si 
general. Cependant les jeunes filles ont encore I'habi- 
tude de se voiler la face avec du tulle noir, les jours de 
communion. Elles ont garde aussi leur coquette coiffure, 
veritable monument compose d'un serre-tete, d'une 
bande de dentelle de prix et d'une coiffe." 

This lace band is the only luxury that these people 
of the lowlands allow themselves. They feed badly 
and seldom eat meat save on Shrove Tuesday, when 
their practice is to gorge themselves with a quantity that 
would have satisfied Gargantua — whose creator was 



260 THE LOIRE 

born not so very iav away. And some of their favourite 
jokes seem to sliow a rough humour Avliose quaHty is 
not unhke that of Rabchiis. 

The ferry \vhieh took me across the lioire to this curi- 
ous district of the Vareunes enabled me to walk to the 
village of Rigiiy, to see one of the last of the " chateaux 
de la Loire," that of Usst^ Though not actually on the 
Loire, but on the Indre, it seemed too near to miss. It 
wouhi have been a mistake to have missed it. You reach 
the house up a noble avenue of poplars whii'h opens a long 
vista in front of the lie Ste. Barbe. The chateau is a 
very charming place, a curious medley of towers, turrets, 
pointed roofs, and dormer windows surmoimted by 
stone pinnacles. Its proprietors have added to it 
through successive tiges the embellishments peculiar 
to their time : and these have not been swept away by 
stern-featured restorers. Perhaps the most beautiful 
part of the building is the north facade, facing the 
Cour d'Honneur — a fme example of sixteenth-century 
architecture, with elegant stone shafts rising up, between 
all the windows, to end in a carved stone pinnacle 
standing on either side of the dormers. One of the 
pavilions, and the terraces above the Indre, are the 
work (surely a gentle form of relaxation) of Vauban, 
Louis XIV's great fortress builder, whose elder daughter 
married M. de Valentinay, the then owner of the 
property. There is not nuieh of interest inside the 
chateau, though it has good chinmey -pieces and a 
fine Grand Staircase. The hill which forms the back- 
ground to L^sst^ is covered with fruit-trees which stretch 
as far to the west as the outskirts of the forest of Chinon. 

So there was no escaping it after all ; Chinon would 



FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 261 

have to ho seen, too ! A circular tour seemed obvious. 
There was Azay-le-rideau close at hand, and from 
Azay a geornetrieally straight highway led to Chinon, 
whence the train would bring me back to Port-Boulet, 
or the road carry me through Candes and Montsoreau 
to Saumur. 

Azay-le-rideau turned out to be a charming little 
town set in one of the most smiling paysaf^es of Touraine, 
with something over two thousand inhabitants and a 
pleasant inn, the " Grand Monarque." Its Renaissance 
ch&teau, which for some years past has been the property 
of the State, was built by a wealthy treasurer-general 
of finances in the reign of Fran9ois I, called Gilles 
Berthelot. It is elegant rather than large, and ex- 
tremely attractive. It has two big crenellated towers, 
joined to one another by a corps de logis and a 
principal fa9ade, which are elaborately ornamented. 
Inside there is a good collection of furniture, with some 
pictures, of which the most interesting is a portrait of 
Gabrielle d'Estrdes with her children. The beautiful 
mistress of Henry of Navarre is shown nude to the 
waist, by the side of a ta?jle on which is a plate of fruit. 
Her hair is elaborately dressed, and there are two rings 
on a finger of her left hand. Her children are in the 
background, the youngest in the arms of a wet-nurse, 
and there is a far view of a maid in the distant 
kitchen and of some trees through a tiny square of 
window above the nurse's head. In the portrait, 
the fair Gabrielle has a curious, grave, inscrutable 
face. The forehead is broad and white, the eye- 
brows high and not pronounced, the eyes small, 
but almond-shaped and dark. They seem to look 



262 THE LOIRE 

down her nose, which is a trifle long ; a fact which 
gives an impression faintly sinister. The mouth is the 
most puzzling of her features. It is firm, but has 
possibilities of humour which the gravity of the eyes 
seems to belie. The chin is round and firm and gives the 
face great shapeliness. The beauty of the displayed 
neck and bosom justifies either the vanity of the sitter 
or the enterprise of the painter — whichever was re- 
sponsible for the curious semi-nudity of the pose. 

The park surrounding the chateau is extremely well 
kept, and borders the Indre, whose valley unrolls itself 
towards Usse with a soft graciousness. 

From Azay the straightest of straight roads stretches 
for the longest dozen miles that I can remember, 
across the flat expanses of the Varennes, to Chinon. 
I could not restrain a slight tremor of excitement as I 
approached Chinon. It was a place beloved by our own 
Henry II, who died here in 1189. It stood a year's 
siege against Philip Augustus of France in 1204-5 ; and 
finally, was it not at Chinon that la Lorraine sought 
Charles VII at the beginning of her fateful mission ? The 
town stretches along the banks of the Vienne, nine miles 
above its junction with the Loire. It is a considerable 
place, with more than six thousand people, and its fine 
hotel, which occupies the buildings of a monastery, is 
greatly frequented by English and American tourists. 
The chateau, whose remains — a long line of ram- 
parts divided off by towers — make a noble appear- 
ance on a high plateau above the town, commands 
the valley of the Vienne. It consists really of three 
distinct castles, the chateau de St. Georges, the chateau 
du Milieu, and the chateau du Coudray. Of the 



FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 263 

chateau de St. Georges, built by Henry II of England 
(where he died, muttering " Shame on a beaten King ! "), 
only some foundations remain. The chateau du Milieu, 
begun in the eleventh century on the site of an old 
Roman fort, has suffered from frequent restorations, but 
is the one which most repays an inspection. The chief 
points are the dungeon (the part best preserved), the 
Pavilion de I'Horloge at the entrance, and the Grand 
Logis, in the hall of which the meeting between Joan of 
Arc and Charles VII is supposed to have taken place. The 
third part, the chateau du Coudray, is connected with the 
chateau du Milieu by a bridge which crosses the deep 
separating moat. It is composed of two round towers 
and a third tower of great beauty, with, on the left, 
a thirteenth-century chapel. The ruins of Chinon are 
the property of the State, and the plateau on which 
they stand has been turned into a public walk. 

From the quays by the side of the broad Vienne the 
appearance of the castle is altogether admirable : a 
very long line of ramparts, with tall towers here and 
there, set in a frame of trees, with the long white town 
underneath them. Chinon, among all its memories, has 
one which is particularly dear to me. In it or near 
it (for Seuilly disputes the honour) the ever- youthful 
Rabelais was born about the year 1495. 

I decided not to return by the railway, after all, to 
Port-Boulet and Chouze-sur-Loire, but following, on its 
western bank, the course of the Vienne, to see Candes 
(where the Vienne joins the Loire) and Montsoreau, its 
neighbour. 

It was a lovely road, with beautiful manors all 
the way, under heights, covered with fruit trees 



264 



THE LOIRE 



or dotted with windmills. At the village of St. Germain- 
sur-Vienne the banks of the river are covered with 
ducks, tirons and tirettes, the tirons being the males. 
St. Germain is yet another village claiming to be Rabelais' 
birthplace. The hill that commands it is surmounted by 
a rocky cliff, riddled with dwellings and covered by 




Cand^s 

houses, while underneath the hill is its very ancient 
church. After St. Germain comes the He Boiret, a long 
narrow island consisting of meadows bordered by 
alders. Then, where the great tributary joins the main 
waterway, Candes smiles high up amid its terraced 
gardens and surveys the meeting. Candes has a great 
church, which has the appearance almost of a fortress, 



FROM TOURS TO SAUMUR 265 

built on the site of the cell in which St. Martin died. All 
that the restorers with their bright white stonework 
could do to destroy its venerable appearance, has, 
needless to say, been done. There is also a chateau here 
which was at times the residence of Charles VII and 
Louis XI ; it is now practically in ruins. 

Below Candes and further on, is Montsoreau, on the 
Loire, which, although it really forms one town with 
Candes, is, like Fontevrault, which lies further to the 
south, within the borders of the province of Anjou. 

Montsoreau is a white-faced village of about five 
hundred people, whose old houses, all mellow and rose- 
covered, are dominated by the remains of a great chateau. 
Originally the river ran immediately at the castle foot, 
but the high road, from which the chateau rises abruptly, 
now separates them. The Loire is here immensely wide, 
and has a savage appearance, given it by its great sand- 
banks. The castle, in the seventeenth century and 
earlier, served as the rendezvous for a swarm of titled 
robbers, whose exactions from the voyagers up and down 
the Vienne and the Loire remained a standing source of 
annoyance to the district until the days when Richelieu 
could veil his policy beneath a semblance of benevolence 
and relieve the river trade by crushing the feudal 
rights. Externally, on the side facing the river, 
the chateau presents a solid stretch of masonry, high 
and massive, and with a very proud air, flanked on 
either side by two crumbling towers. Inside, in the 
cour d'honneur, now much disfigured, there is a lovely 
turret containing the staircase, decorated with delicate 
arabesques and fantastic mouldings, and still used by 
the various families of labourers and vignerons who have 



266 THE LOIRE 

taken up their abode in different parts of the huge build- 
ing. Some of its great halls are used as cellars and 
warehouses, and odd-shaped windows have been knocked 
in the walls of others, which have been divided up into 
dwelling-rooms. The unrestored, declasse state of the 
chateau made it immensely evocative of the past, more 
so than many of the more frequented, elaborate and his- 
toric places that I had visited. Dumas laid the scene 
of one of his stories here : " La Dame de Montsoreau." 
From Montsoreau a tramway takes you to Saumur along 
the river-side, or inland, along a pretty road, to Fonte- 
vrault. 

Fontevrault is a sad place— in the middle of lovely 
forest country— which centres round its huge abbey, 
now used as a prison. The abbey of Fontevrault was 
the most illustrious of all the religious houses in France. 
It was both a monastery and a nunnery, with an abbess 
at the head of each part ; it numbered royal princesses 
among its abbesses, and its church, the " Grand 
Moutier," still holds the mutilated tombs of the 
Plantagenets, among them those of Henry II and of 
Richard the Lion Heart. In spite of the dismal prison 
atmosphere of the abbey buildings it is impossible for 
an Englishman to remain quite unmoved on ground so 
intimately connected with our history. 

I returned rather sadly to Montsoreau. After Mont- 
soreau the tram skirts the river, passing the village of 
Turquant, where some of the best Saumur wine is made, 
till its ten-mile journey is completed, and the ample, 
surprising town of Saumur greets the traveller's de- 
lighted gaze. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SAUMUR TO ANGERS 

SAUMUR is ancient and spacious ; probably few 
places of about seventeen thousand people take 
up so much room, and give such an impression of 
importance. It is arranged, too, as though by a scenic 
artist, entirely for effect. The Orleans Railway station 
is on the right bank of the river, and anyone arriving by 
train must be struck with the imposing appearance of 
the town from the bridge. The electric trams that cross 
and recross (at not too frequent intervals) lend an 
additional note of deception. To the left stretches a line 
of hills crowned with windmills, usually at work. These 
steep slopes end in the massive yellow keep of King 
Rene's castle. All round the foot of the castle the old 
streets and houses cluster ; along the river front is a 
stately line of tall houses and pleasant rows of trees, 
while on the right-hand side of the bridge the sharp 
spire of a church outlines itself against the sky. Saumur 
gives a great impression of length. 

The river is very broad just here, and between the 
Orleans station and the town proper is a long island, 
called rile d'Or. The great road which crosses by two 
stone bridges to Saumur and traverses the town with 
absolute inflexibility, is bordered all the way with tall 
houses, except on the actual bridges. The houses built 

267 



268 THE LOIRE 

on the island are known collectively as the Faubourg des 
Fonts. This island has unexpected historic interest. It 
seems, for one thing, always to have been there, and 
Loire islands are usually perishable ; and it contains the 
remains of a chateau built by the good King Rene of 
Anjou in the middle of the fifteenth century, for his 
daughter. It was here, too, under the patronage of 
King Rene, that there sprang up a little independent 
republic of fishermen and labourers. They kept them- 
selves quite apart (as the Hortillons of Amiens do still), 
were hardy, independent workers, impatient of any kind 
of control save that of their elected chief, who was chosen 
to preserve their privileges against aggression, and to 
settle domestic disputes. They seem to have been neither 
a contentious nor a discontented community. " Mock 
coronations, laughing processions, bright gatherings of 
men and maidens, gaily went on all the summer in the 
little island," says one authority, adding that " even in 
the days of Louis XVI, an old sailor in the French fleet 
bore as his proudest title that of ' Roi de la Republique 
de rile d'Or.' " 

At the end of the bridge, after crossing the little 
island, you come into Saumur by the "Place de la 
Bilange." On your left is a theatre built in 1864, appar- 
ently by an admirer of the Odeon ; and behind it is the 
sixteenth - century Hotel de Ville. But the quaintest 
part of the town, the only quarter indeed in which 
an idea of the old Huguenot Saumur can be obtained, 
is away from the quays, and away from the broad roads 
on the right of the rue d'Orleans, the great highway that 
traverses the town. It is to be found in the narrow streets 
at the foot of the hill on which the castle stands, and 



SAUMUR TO ANGERS 



269 



also round the Romanesque church of Notre-Dame-de- 
Nantilly, further back. In the seventeenth century, 
Saumur was a great stronghold of Protestantism, under 
the Governorship of Duplessis-Mornay, the famous 
" Pape des Huguenots," and was the seat of a large 
Protestant university. After the revocation of the 




Saumur 

Edict of Nantes, however, in 1685, it lost 25,000 of its 
inhabitants. This crushing blow may account for its 
undue size nowadays, in proportion to its inhabitants. 
Certainly the town did not begin to recover in prosperity 
from this disaster until after the arrival of the corps of 
" Carabiniers du Monsieur," in 1763. For these troops, 
five years later, a school of horsemanship was founded — 
origin of the present world-famous Ecole de Cavalerie, 



270 THE LOIRE 

in the large barracks facing the rue Beaurepaire. The 
presence of the big Cavahy school, where officers in the 
most fashionable French regiments receive their training, 
has made Saumur one of the places where Society 
spends both its time and its money. The roads in the 
neighbourhood of the school are spacious, and bordered 
with comfortable houses, while the incessant passing 
to and fro of men on horseback and smartly-dressed 
women, gives them great animation. A long, tree-shaded 
avenue leading to the little affluent of the Loire, the 
Thouet, is a very favourite "Row"; the rich yellow- 
green of the acacias, and the men on horseback in 
bright uniforms, riding under their shade, might almost 
cause it to be mistaken for a corner of the Bois. This 
elegant suburb is certainly ver}"" different from the old 
quarter near the castle, in one of whose steep and narrow 
roads, remarkable for " la sonorite de son petit pave 
caillouteux," lived, as all lovers of Balzac will re- 
member, Eugenie Grandet, the daughter of the miserly 
old tonnelier. The chateau itself, like anything in which 
that versatile artist King Rene had a hand, is placed 
admirably for effect on the sharp promontory which 
commands the junction of the Thouet with the Loire. 
It has lately been bought by the town, restored, and 
turned into the inevitable Musee, and there is no need 
to examine it closely. A building with a splendid 
position in a landscape, as someone has pointed out, 
always disappoints on near inspection. It has been 
the scene, however, of some striking events. Here was 
scored one of the principal successes of the Royalists of 
La Vendee in 1793, under Larochejacquelin. The rebels 
forced the garrison to surrender, insisting quaintly that 



SAUMUR TO ANGERS 271 

each Republican soldier should submit to being shaved 
on one side of his head before he was allowed to go free. 
If one continues to follow the steep ascent which 
winds up round the castle, one finds oneself very soon on 
the " Butte des Moulins," among the celebrated wind- 
mills of Saumur. The view is admirable ; a prospect 
which Turner might have painted, and probably did, 
during his sketching tour down the Loire in 1828. 
At the foot of the hill swells the dome of Notre Dame 
des Ardilliers, which owes its completion to the repent- 
ance of Mme. de Montespan. Near by it is the modest 
" Villa des Jagueneaux," which was inhabited by the dis- 
carded favourite who, too old now really to enjoy 
anything but the consolations of the spirit, gave herself 
up to devotion, and to the severest mortification of 
the flesh ; varied by the compilation of her memoirs. 
Incidentally, she must have had a good deal to repent 
of, if there is any truth in the stories of the Black Masses 
which she had performed on her person in the vain 
endeavour to retain, through the Devil's agency, her 
hold on the affections of the Grand Monarque. On the 
whole, however, her repentance was probably more an 
evidence of deep chagrin and exacerbation at being 
defeated by Madame de Maintenon than of religious 
feeling or fear for her soul. It must indeed have been 
trying for a haughty and passionate woman — " a majestic 
beauty, with hair dressed in a thousand ringlets," who, 
always kept herself in the limelight while she was in 
favour, who bullied the poor Queen, and lived so magnifi- 
cently that she was able to lose and win back four 
million francs in one night at bassette — to see herself 
supplanted in the King's affection by an elderly and 



272 THE LOIRE 

devout widow whom she had engaged as governess for 
their children I 

To return to the Butte des Moulins: the hill itself 
was called " Murus " in Gallo-Roman times ; and this 
" salvus murus " was a final refuge from attack. It is 
completely honeycombed with burrows, of human 
construction. As I had noticed in my walk from Chinon, 
and eight-mile tram journey from Montsoreau,the villages 
all the way are largely composed of grottoes cut out of 
the solid rock, their chimneys and openings appearing 
picturesquely among the greenery. The hills flanking 
the river are covered with vines, which yield the white 
vin mousseux for which the district is famous. 

The neighbourhood of Saumur is rich in megalithic 
monuments, and it is a curious fact that these monu- 
ments are all to be found on the left bank of the Loire, 
and on the two banks of the Thouet. South of the town, 
across the bridge (Pont Fouchard) over the Thouet near 
Bagneux, is the famous Dolmen de Bagneux or Grand 
Dolmen, the largest of its kind in France. 

So striking was Saumur in a purely spectacular way, 
that I have little recollection of anything else save a meal 
that was a disappointment, and some wine of the district 
which suggested that Saumur was the last place in the 
world at which to drink " Saumur." I spent only a night 
in the town^ and left on the following morning by the 
broad highway on the left bank, for St. Remy, where 
I intended to cross the bridge to St. Mathurin and make 
for les Ponts-de-Ce, going first (to sleep) to Angers. It 
was a good twenty-mile tramp to St. Mathurin, through 
a constant succession of villages nestling imder vine-clad 
hills, and rich with beautiful examples of mediaeval 



SAUMUR TO ANGERS 273 

architecture. The right bank, on which the railway runs 
absolutely straight, through varennes — touching only 
les Rosiers, St. Mathurin, and Trelaze (where the large 
slate quarries are) before reaching Angers — is far less 
interesting. 

The first place outside Saumur that I reached was St. 
Hilaire St. Florent, a long town of over two thousand 
people, shut in between the left bank of the Thouet, and 
a picturesque hill which separates it from the Loire. 
This part of the journey can loe accomplished by the 
electric train that starts from the Orleans station. Of 
the once celebrated abbey of St. Florent only a few 
buildings, dating from the seventeenth century and 
restored and added to in the nineteenth, still remain. 
The town is a centre of the Saumur wine industry, and 
Ackermann-Laurance and other firms have here im- 
mense cellars carved in the hillside, out of the solid rock. 
After St. Florent th(3 road draws near the Loire again, 
crossing the Thouet just before it debouches into the 
main stream. It runs now once more at the foot of 
pleasant hills, not, however, so abrupt as those between 
Montsoreau and Saumur. The beauty and interest of 
this stretch of country are very great, and it seems to be 
well out of the beaten track for tourists. At Chenehutte- 
les-Tuffeaux, the first village after St. Florent, are some 
interesting remains of a sixteenth- century priory joined 
to a little Romanesque church. At Treves, a mile or 
two further on, there was another Romanesque church, 
and a fine castle, consisting of two towers, one round 
and one square, built by Pierre le Magon on the site of an 
earlier fortress erected by the redoubtable Black Falcon, 
Foulques Nerra, who built so many strongholds in the 



274. THE LOIRE 

Loire valley. A mile further is Cunaiilt, with a much- 
restored but very fine " Plantagenet " church, con- 
taining some mural paintings of great interest, and 
columns with two hundred elaborately carved capitals. 
The tower is highl}' ornamented, and topjDed with a 
pointed spire of stone. 

After two more miles I reached Gennes, a village 
surrounded by the remains of a once important Roman 
town. At Gennes too, those who love them may study 
the celebrated Dolmens. From the top of the steep hill 
above the village the view stretches far over the low- 
lying varennes of the right bank, the fertile Vallee 
d'x4.njou, as far as the old town of Beaufort, which still 
wears a strongly feudal air, and lies at the foot of some 
low hills. 

Gennes is about a dozen miles from Saumur, and after 
leaving it behind one comes very soon to the remains of 
the famous abbey of St. Maur — a line of ancient walls 
rising from the river-bank. The abbey was founded in 
the sixth century by St. IMaur, who, in the eighteenth 
century, gave his name to a celebrated congregation of 
Benedictines, who possessed a number of important 
houses, of which this was one of the chief. Of the 
ancient abbey, besides the walls seen from the Loire, 
there remains a building of the seventeenth centurj'-, and 
above it, half-way up the hill, a twelfth-century chajDcl 
built on the actual foundations of the sanctuary where 
St. Maur died and was buried. The abbey was sup- 
pressed by the Revolutionaries, but restored by the 
Benedictines in 1890. They v/ere again sent packing by 
M. Combes in 1903. The village is joined by a ferry 
to La Menitr^, a little centre for the rich agricultural 



SAUMUR TO ANGERS 



275 



industry of a district which is one of the most fertile 
and highly cultivated in France. It recalls memories — 
like so many villages in Anjou — of the good King Ren6, 
king of half a dozen places and yet without a kingdom, 
whose amiable personality has left such an indelible 
mark on the many places where he lived or stayed. 









4% 




The Loire at Gennes 

Below St. Maur and La Menitre we come to the village 
of St. Remy-la-Varenne, with a restored church and the 
remains of a priory which contains an elaborately carved 
and painted chinmey-piece. The road here crosses the 
river by a long suspension bridge to St. Mathurin, which 
has a modern church, boasting fine stalls and carved 
woodwork, said to have come from the abbey of St. 
Maur. 



i'7(> TllK l.OirvK 

Tho T;oiro bolow licnnos iHH'onios for a >vhilo nnrnnvor, 
doopor. mul nuM\^ po>vovf\il. IhM'oi\^ spro:uiin_u" itsolf npvin 
ainoui:; tho islands of St. KiMny-la-Varomu\ Soon after 
S(. KcMny Iho hills abruptly loavo tho rivor-bank, and the 
stroain runs botwwMi low-lyiiii;' borders in llu' iwiildlo I'lf a 
posit iNo lab)rii\th of islands ami islols bcfin\^ passin^f 
nndor tho arohos of los l\M\t s-dc-l\'\ 

At St. ^Mathnrin, lato in tht^ t^A onini^-. I gv^t inti> 
tho train, tiroil vnil. anil loft tho Loiro. lo rattlo 
thront^h an odd ilistriol, all soarrod with slato nhuos, 
into *' Maok Ani^ors." At Mav'k An^'ors I slopt. 

I was >•() tirod that, in tlu^ n\ornino'. I rofnsod tv> got 
up boforo hniohoon, Vlxc idoa of luu in^' to oxplore 
An^'ors. a nioro "bio- town." aftor having' passod 
joyously down sunny villago st roots, with tho groat 
yollow rivor swirling along by my siilo far tpiiokor than 
I eoidd run. was in tho last dogroo woarisonu\ I had 
boon along a road that niado yon sing as yom walkod ; 
nndorgroon slopos rioh with Ninos : by rninod oastlos. and 
bonoath tho shadow of quoor olnnvhos. I had wandorod 
through a land froo from tourists with guido-boi^ks 
in thoir hands : whoro yo\i oonld ploasantly drink 
your bottlo of wino in tho simlight. And horo 1 was 
at ^Viigers — tho homo of tho Plant agonots : a plaoo 
stooped in assooiations. with hundroiis of things io sec 
in it. T\o doubt, llow tirosomo \t all soundod ! It was 
vory hard to got up. ovon lo oat. To make things 
worse, tho tlno days of whioh 1 hail had suoh a long 
suooossion. soontoil from tho dismal state of tho sky 
to have eoasod for on- or. I midid my bag. pulled out 
my soldom-oonsidtod l>aodokor and lay baok on tho 
pillow to road about Augers. It was ancient and 



SAfJMrjI? 7'0 ANCKIfS '277 

prospcroiJH I (\'iHVJ>v(:r((l, poHSOSKr-.fJ 77,\('A jnhabibxnis, 
iUi<\ w.i'A •,\\Mii,\.(jl on f,f)f; f\ii,v]iiii})\(- river M.uinf;, fiv; fn))f;s 
above it,8 cfjnflucDco wifij tijf; Jioirc. " Ari//f;rs," fiic 
account corilinucB, " waK forff)f;rly very badJy built 
and was known as the ' lilack Town,' on account of its 
sombre appearance, but in tlie nirjeteenth century it 
underwent an alnjf^st cf>rriplete transformation. Its 
ancient ramparts were replaced by handsome boule- 
vards, afJ joined by f(\<)(U:rfi suburbs, new streets were 
opened up, others were widerjed and straij^htened, and 
numerous lar^e edifices, quays, and bridges werr: 
constructed." Alas, this was deplorable! J had come 
to know those " handsome boulevards," those " modern 
suburbs " of the second-rate provincial city. At Anj^ers 
they were more disr/jal tharj J had thou^^ht fjossible. 
Even French "restoration," which preserves the plan 
of the original, is to be preferred to this passion for 
substituting broad, stupid boulevards and " large 
edifices " for buildings with charm and character whiefi 
less drastic measures would easily render hf;althy and 
safe. In the middle of the town is a specimen of what 
in other parts has been ruthlessly destroyed to make 
way for the "edifices" — the tall, half-timbered house 
with five overhanging stories, known as the Maison 
d'Adam. 'J'his beautiful fifteenth-century dwelling is at 
the corner of a little square ; its dark, carved woodwf>rk 
is most elaborate and interesting. The cathedral of St. 
Maurice, in which I sheltered during a sudden, most 
ferocious downpour, seemed very grand and simple — 
a twelfth -century nave, without aisles and, oddly enough, 
without either triforium or clerestory. Its west front 
is good, and makes a fine effect, as you approach it up 



278 THE LOIRE 

the Montee St. Maurice, with its twin tapering spires 
and the elaborate carving of its fa9ade, above the 
pointed archway of the door. 

But the great " sight " of Angers, which seems to 
dwarf the whole town by its hugeness, is the sombre 
castle. This vast fortress stands above the Maine, 
on a foundation of solid rock ; it is perhaps still, as 
Baedeker remarks, " one of the most imposing buildings 
of the kind in existence." It was built chiefly in the 
thirteenth century, and in shape resembles a pentagon. 
It had originally seventeen huge round towers, many 
of which have now been destroyed. Those that remain 
are joined together by curtains of venerable masonry. 
Its moat has been filled in, and on the south side one 
of its bastions has been swept away to make room for a 
boulevard. This great donjon — which looks most over- 
powering, perhaps, from the bridge — like many of the 
same period and style, is one which should be observed 
from the outside. Inside, it is used for storing ammuni- 
tion, and contains some very ugly modern buildings 
and nothing to see. Just in front of the castle, in the 
place d'Anjou, at the point where the Boulevard du 
Chateau meets the Boulevard du Roi Rene, is a small 
bronze statue of King Rene, by the celebrated sculptor, 
David D'Angers. 

Of the amusements which Angers may have to offer 
to the jaded voyager, though I regard myself as some- 
thing of an amateur of such things, as far as French 
towns are concerned, I yet cannot speak. There was no 
performance at the large theatre which looks on to the 
" Place du Ralliement " ; and the incessant rain made 
the town uninviting as far as exploration was concerned. 



SAUMUR TO ANGERS 270 

No donfjl. tlif; Jardin du Mail if) frojil, ol the H6tel de 
Villc, which has a handstand, in tiie jniddlc of il;, and. the 
hroad and shady houlevards dc la Maine and de Sauniur, 
are pleasant enou^li when there is sun or moon to Ji^dit 
thera. That rnclaueJjoly evening, with tl/e jain failin;* in 
large drop:, jn^ni the leaves and branches, th'-.y d]fJ not 
entice to anything mxvc fdo de tje. However, Angers has 
one great virtue — it specialises in. tlie manufacture of 
liqueurs made of the hlaek-heart cherry, a fruit which 
is grown \n th(i surrourjding distriet.s \u ;.;reat quantities. 
Between St. Mathurin and les Ponts-de-Ce the villages 
are nearly smothered in cherry trees whose white blos- 
som, in the springtime, is said, to be a rare and unfor- 
gettable sight. The i.'J;ujd \)i:\.yj<:c\\ tjje 'J houet and l.h'; 
Loire is like a iirduX ()r<:\r<i!<L (^uir;noi':t j-; l.lje (•.\\'i(A 
liqueur made at Angers, and according to the legend it 
was invented in the Middle Ages by the nuns of a liene- 
dictine convent. I do not know whether this is the case, 
or whether M. Cointreau invented the liqueur aufl fjrje 
of his travellers the anecdote; I can only assert that 
Guignolet has its good points. But all liqueurs have a 
fascination for me which I cannot attempt to disguise. 
Guignolet I have never tasted before or since, yet to me 
it and Angers are synonyr/jou:;, and the one almost en- 
ables me to forgive the other for being what Mr. James 
has called " done up " and, in the same passage, 
" stupidly and vulgarly modernised." 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE VALLEE d'ANJOU 

"TTTHEN a large town is dull or depressing there 
* * is always the electric tramway to fall back on. 
More for my vow's sake, seeing that it was a town on 
the Loire, than because I had any particular knowledge 
of the place or hopefulness with regard to it, I took, 
on the second morning after my arrival at Angers, the 
tramcar to les Ponts-de-Ce, the ancient Pons Saii of 
the Romans. 

This little town of between three and four thousand 
people lies about three miles to the south of Angers, 
and, perhaps as a sign that piety deserves to be re- 
warded, the nearer I got to it the brighter became the 
weather, and I arrived in a triumphant burst of sun- 
shine. The aspect of the place is original ; it is quite 
a unique and satisfactory little town, and spreads 
itself across the river, bordering a straight, interminable 
highway. The Loire here is like an arm of the sea ; it is 
two miles wide and studded with islands. The town is 
built on three of them connected with either bank, 
and with each other, by a series of bridges, which 
have in all one hundred and nine arches. 

At one end of the midmost of the islands on which 
the place is built, I'lle Forte, is the castle of King 
Rene (the number of whose castles must run well into 

280 



THE VALLEE D'ANJOU 



281 



three figures). It is an octagonal tower whose slated 
roof is supported by a machicolated gallery. In spite of 
the many batterings it has received in the various 
struggles in which it has played its part — particularly 
in 1620, when the Royal troops under Crequi met here 
the partisans of Marie de Medicis; and in 1793, when 
the army of the Convention met the Royalists of la 




Les Ponts-de-Ce 



Vendee — it still remains remarkably solid and strong. 
The town, until the coming of the railway and the multi- 
plication of bridges, had a great strategic importance. 

Its warlike past, dating certainly from Roman 
times, is now, however, forgotten in the rush for 
matelote, for les Ponts-de-Ce is the favourite airing- 
place on fine holidays for the people of Angers, and it 
has many pleasant caf6s, with shady gardens, where the 
favourite fish stew of tench or shad can be indulged in. 



28- TllK 1.0 IKE 

111 this rosjHH't los Tonts-do-Co is to .Vnows >v]v:\t I ho 
banks of I ho Loirot ami la C'ha[Hilo St. IMosmin aro to 
Orloaus. 

Botwoon los Tonts-ilo-Co ami tho oiuluniohuvo o{ tho 
IMaiuo. tho oounlry is slmUlod Avilh haiulots. On tho 
riii'ht bank is St. Gouvnios rising in I ho shapo of an anijvhi- 
thoatro up Iho slopos of a camp of Julius Civsar : on tho 
loft aro tho villaiios of Aluvs and of St . Joan do la Croix. 
Noar hovo, at la Rooho-do-Murs, a high oliff ovorlooking 
tho Louot. ono of tho branches oi tho Loiro, ooourrod 
ouo of tho most dramatic inoidonts in tho bloody >var 
of la ^'oudoo. A battalion of Uopublican soldiers loft 
to guard this position uas surrounded and cut off 
by tho Koyalists. They ^voro summoned to surrender, 
but ruther than do so they all throw themselves from 
the top of tho cliff into tho Louot, shouting ** Vive la 
Ixopublique ! " Among them was a. woman, tho wife 
of an otUcer, to whom tho Koyalists offered her life. 
She, however, preferred to tlirow^ herself and her 
children into the river with the others. 

The stretch of river between los Tonts-de-Ce mid 
Nantes is ono of sueh surpassing interest and beauty 
that it ean ouh be soon properly by making the descent 
in a boat. A whole summer might be rapturously 
spent in exploring its hundreds of backwaters, its wind- 
ing arms and hoiirs, its innumerable little-known 
but interesting towns and villages. There is not nnicli 
in the guide-books to call attention to a district, one of 
Avhose charms is perhaps that it is so '* undiscovered." 
Not having a boat aAailable, I was forced to go aw^k- 
wardly from point to point, missing a good ileal that 
would have boon revealed to a canoeist, and lean indeed 



TlfK VAIJ.KK D'ANJOU 288 

only rncntjon briefly the f>rim;ipaJ lowris urx] villageH 
on cither iKUjik. 

At the mouth of the M.-iine, on tfie ri^4)t f^urjk of tFic 
Loire, is the gleaming white village of la Tointe, 
facing a wide sheet of water. Jielow it on the same side 
is SavoriMiercs — ^famous for its wines — which has also 
a station ; and la Po;>soni(;rc. The little tfjwn of St. 
Georges-sur-Loire and the chateau de Serrant lie a mile 
or two inland. 

There is still a good deal (A water-traflie between 
Nantes and Angers ; when improvements Jiave been 
carried out and s(jrrif;thing done towards regularising 
the course of the I>oire, this will no doubt largely in- 
crease. Until quite ref;f:ntly a regular service of pas- 
senger steamers ran betvv'ef;n tlie two tov/ns, the landing- 
stage of the steamers at Angers being just under the 
castle. La Pointe looks across to a great low island 
opposite, formed by the liOuet, which is very highly 
cultivated. On the right bank, beyond the village, rocky 
hills rise cliff-like from tha river, giving the landscape 
a " note " of magnificence. The occasional appearance 
of a small ship corning up under sail towards Angers 
lends a new excitement now to the river — brings a thrill 
from the still distant sea, wfiiefi is delicious to English 
travellers who have been, for long, further away from it 
than they can ever get in their own small island. Some of 
the rocks about here are very curious ; there is one in par- 
ticular, a sharp, projecting spur which curiously resembles 
an obelisk. Ueyondthe cliffs, that is to say above them, 
at the back, the land is planted with vines. Here are 
the great cms of Anjou, of which the chief is the 
Coulee de Serrant on part of the estate surrounding 



284 THE LOIRE 

the celebrated chateau de Serrant. This house, which 
Hes to the south of the highway from Angers to 
Nantes, about a mile from the little town of St. 
Georges-sur-Loire, is a magnificent example of the 
Renaissance chateau, enclosed in a huge park. It is 
composed of three rectangular wings flanked at 
the outside angles by two beautiful towers sur- 
mounted by domes. The chateau is surrounded by 
large moats filled with water and in good preservation. 
The northern tower and those parts of the house which 
adjoin it, were built in 1546, from designs by Philibert 
Delorme ; the southern tower and most of the re- 
mainder of the house were built in 1636. The chapel 
dates also from the seventeenth century, and is the 
work of Mansard. The whole fabric has lately been 
very carefully restored. In 1661 Guillaume Bautru, 
who owned the estate at that time, received here the 
" Grand Monarque." In 1755 it became the property 
of an Irishman named James Walsh, related to the 
Jacobite merchant of Nantes who in 1745 provided the 
Young Pretender with the ship which carried him to 
Scotland. James Walsh's descendant, the Due de la 
Tremoille, now owns it. 

St. Georges-sur-Loire, which is situated along the 
highway to the south-east of Serrant, contains two 
beautiful seventeenth-century buildings, remains of its 
abbey, and a church of the same date. Five miles 
further on towards Ancenis is Champtoce, a village 
at the bottom of a valley, dominated by the ruins of a 
castle which has a sinister name merely because it 
belonged to Gilles de Retz, though the Bluebeard of 
the fairy story never actually lived there. It is hardly 



THE VALLEE D'ANJOU 285 

worth a visit, however, in a land so stocked with ruined 
castles as Anjou, and the traveller bent on seeing the 
Loire will see more of it by turning off due south, at 
St. Georges, and following the road which leads across 
the river to Chalonnes. Just before Chalonnes is a perfect 
archipelago of islands, as highly cultivated as gardens, 
and studded with hamlets and villages. The Loire 
is split up by them into a number of branches of which 
some keep the swiftness of the river's current, others 
seem to sleep like stagnant lakes. These still backwaters, 
which are frequently formed in the lower reaches of 
the river, almost as far down as St. Nazaire, are known 
as boires. 

Chalonnes is situated at the embouchure of two 
canalised affluents of the Loire, the Layon and the 
Louet. A word here should be said for the calm and 
tranquil Louet, pleasantest of the branches of the 
Loire, which takes its gentle way bordered and over- 
hung on either side by beautiful trees, amid green 
pasture-lands and at the foot of peaceful villages. 
Here, indeed, is a paradise awaiting the soft splash 
of the exploring canoeist's paddle ; here in its fullness is 
Du Bellay's " Doulceur Angevine." 

Before the decay of navigation on the river, 
Chalonnes was a place of some importance on account 
of its coal-mines. These are still worked, but the yield 
is not a large one. The population of the place has 
sunk from about six to about four thousand people. 
In front of the town the Loire is divided into four 
arms separated by islands and crossed by a line of 
suspension bridges a mile and a half long. 

At Chalonnes begins, on the left bank, some of the 



286 THE LOIRE 

finest scenery of the lower Loire. The rocks rise straight 
up from the river, their summits often covered with 
houses; in one place an old watch-tower seems to 
guard the channel. The lesser arm of the river runs 
at the base of these cliffs, which further on are crowned 
by a green, luxuriant wood. Behind them stretch the 
vineyards. Then suddenly the aspect of the landscape 
changes. The rocky wall is broken by a valley, enclosed 
by pleasant hills covered with villages and topped by 
numerous windmills. It is a delightful corner, unlike 
Anjou even to the roofs of the houses, which — in spite of 
their proximity to the slate quarries of Angers — are 
red-tiled and flat, like those in the Velay. At the 
bottom of the valley enormous lime-kilns lend a touch 
of the grotesque not altogether displeasing. Some of 
them, abandoned, overgrown and ruinous, have a human 
interest which many feudal keeps might envy. I must 
confess to being unable to pass a deserted " works," 
factory, or furnace without a thrill. Here — so obviously 
— men toiled ; and with what apparent futility ! I can 
think of nothing that is a more grim reminder of the 
transitory nature of human life than a deserted forge 
or ruinous factory chimney. 

The furnaces still at work show plenty of signs of life in 
the streams of smoke which escape from their chimneys, 
and their presence has the advantage of making the river 
near here much more animated than it otherwise would 
be. Vessels are moored at the foot of each works, loading 
or unloading their cargoes. Beautiful sailing-ships come 
upstream, stately, like great white birds, while others 
slide down with the current, their masts lowered. 

The view from here towards the port of Montjean, 



THE VALLEE D'ANJOU 



287 



backed by its great cliff, is very fine, and the large 
group of lime-kilns looks in the distance, as Ardouin- 
Dumazet observes, like a great fortress. Mont jean is 
nowadays the port of the Loire which lies furthest 
inland. The population of the place — over three 
thousand — consists almost entirely of seamen. The 
little port is commanded and half crushed by the steep 
hill against which it shelters and on the top of which 



.Mi 











¥M^" 



"If- 
'^ 

Montjean 

stands its noble church. On the opposite bank across a 
broad plain can be seen the grey, ivy-covered towers 
and ramparts of the castle of Champtoce, mentioned 
earlier. Looking further down the river, now become a 
vast sheet of water with already something of the 
character of an estuary, you notice the thin, frail 
suspension bridge, and further on the white houses of 
Ingrandes, a town noted for its wines, which marks the 
boundary between Anjou and Brittany. The shipping 



288 THE LOIRE 

here increases, and strings of barges are met with 
sHnking downstream to Nantes. Below Ingrandes the 
river separates itself into many channels divided by 
islands, bordered by lines of willows and osiers, which 
are highly cultivated. Each group of islands is suc- 
ceeded by a broad and peaceful reach. 

Some miles below Ingrandes rises a steep hill, on the 
left bank, covered with red roofs surrounding a high 
tower topped by a spherical dome, the whole set in a 
green frame of trees. This is the interesting village of 
St. Florent-le-Vieil, which presents a very picturesque 
appearance with its crown of broken ramparts, its fes- 
toons of climbing plants, its terrace bordered with trees, 
and its pleasant church. It was at St. Florent that the 
war of La Vendee — whose traces are so frequently 
met with throughout this part of the Loire valley — 
first started. The peasants, on the 28th of March, 1793, 
refused to obey the conscription which sought to send 
them to defend their country on its eastern frontier. 
They repulsed the soldiers of the Convention sent to 
force their compliance with the order and chose for 
their leader the pious sacristan of Le Pin-en-Mauges, 
Cathelineau, called the Saint de VAnjou. The tomb of 
Cathelineau's successor, Bonchamps, is in the church 
of St. Florent. 

A line of sand at the foot of the hill gives quite a marine 
appearance to the village, which is added to by the 
fishermen often seen here in the act of drawing in their 
long nets. Opposite St. Florent is Varades, a mile and 
a half away, which is connected with the town by an 
omnibus service. 

Once again the cliff, high and verdant, turns away 



THE VALLEE D'ANJOU 



289 



from the stream, which now flows majestically between 
low banks. Then come a succession of islands, large 
and small, their banks bordered with long lines of 
stately poplar trees — a wide and splendid landscape. 
Then, after I'lle Briand, I'lle Kerguelen, I'lle Boire- 



'^•-S^<^J 




St. Florent-le-Vieil 



Rousse, rile aux Moines and I'lle Lefevre, and many 
lesser islets, rises the little port of Ancenis. 

Of all delicious places in a most lovely district, 
Ancenis is surely the most charming. It has about 
five thousand people, and a garrison to lend it a touch 
u 



290 THE LOIRE 

of colour and gaiety. Its streets run, narrow and wind- 
ing, up the hill ; and there is a view across the river — 
more than a quarter of a mile wide here — from some 
old ramparts, from which it is hard to tear oneself away. 
The Loire just below the town is sprinkled with islands ; 
and the valley is a mile in breadth, enclosed by a series 
of low hills whose summits are crowned with windmills. 
On the horizon, here and there, pointed stone spires 
detach themselves. When you look at Ancenis from 
the left bank, before crossing the long suspension bridge, 
the grouping of the little town appears admirable. 
Above the port are the remains of the old castle — some 
ramparts, two dismantled towers flanking a gateway, 
and a few Renaissance buildings ; on the right is the 
church and on the left the square containing Du Bellay's 
statue. Then, at the top of the hill, is a jumble of quaint 
houses, whose slate roofs contrast with their chimneys 
of red tile. To the left is an eighteenth-century chateau, 
incorporating some older parts. A broad promenade 
of chestnut trees, the white blossoms alternating 
with the red, separates the town from the river and 
affords a black and welcome shade. Ancenis is indeed a 
fit place to have bred so sweet a poet as Joachim du 
Bellay. He was not, it should be mentioned, born 
actually in the town, but on the left bank of the river 
some miles south, at the Chateau de la Turmeliere, 
whose ruins are still to be seen in the park of the modern 
chateau of that name. This chateau is within the 
confines of the village of Lire, at the mouth of the small 
stream similarly called, and on a hill above the Loire. 
The Loire, the sweetness of his gentle province of 
Anjou, his own home and pleasant village, du Bellay 



THE VALLEE D'ANJOU 291 

constantly celebrated in his sonnet-sequences, " L'Olive" 
and " Les Regrets," and elsewhere. Few poets have been 
more passionately attached to the district in which they 
lived, or with more reason. He constantly " regrets " 
Anjou : 

" Mes antiques amis, mon plus riche tresor^ 
Et le plaisant sejour de ma terre Angevine. 
Je regrette les bois, et les champs blondissans 

Les vignes, les jardins, et les prez verdissans. 
Que mon fleuve traverse. ..." 

And in one of his famous sonnets he asks : 

*' Quand revoiray-je, lielas, de mon petit village 
Fumer la cheminee ; et en quelle saison 
Revoiray-je le clos de ma pauvre maison^ 
Qui m'est une province^ et beaucoup d'avantage ? 

Plus me plaist le sejour qu'ont basty mes ayeux. 
Que des palais Romaines le front audacieux : 
Plus que le marbre dur me plaist I'ardoise fine. 

Plus mon Loyre Gaulois, que le Tybre Latin, 
Plus mon petit Lyre, que le mont Palatin, 
Et plus que I'air marin la doulceur Angevine." 

Du Bellay died in 1560, at the age of thirty-six. A 
literary pilgrimage which I regret not having undertaken 
is to the site of his house at Lir6. 

Below Ancenis the Loire splits itself among a new 
group of islands ending in a long green strip called I'lle 
Neuve. Then, where Champtoceaux on the left bank 
looks across at Oudon, the river is crossed by a great 
steel bridge. At the southern end of it, after passing 
the ruins of a feudal mill, the road rises en corniche^ 
up the rocky hillside splendidly covered with chestnut 
trees, walnuts, firs, and cedars. The views of the river 
valley from here are exceptionally fine. The village of 
Champtoceaux spreads itself along the top of this hill. 



292 



THE LOIRE 



The church is modern, but at the foot of the hill and 
actually in the stream itself, are some curious ruins of 
an old castle, consisting of the remains of towers, and 
two pointed archways. 

On the other side of the river is Oudon, with its fine 
octagonal tower, five stories high. I say fine ; but its 



M^^ 



.^ 







At Ancenis 

" restoration " really deprives it of all interest except as 
a point in the landscape, when seen from a distance. 
The cliffs which border the river below Oudon are 
covered with firs and pine trees ; and in this sombre 
and majestic setting is a very good mock castle which 
makes quite a picturesque addition to the scenery. 
It goes by the name of the Folic - Siffait, and was 
put up by a public - spirited merchant of Nantes to 



THE VALLEE D'ANJOU 293 

give employment to poor workpeople during a time of 
famine. 

The gorge through which the river runs between 
Oudon and Champtoceaux, and below these two 
places, is extraordinarily fine and at the same time 
little known — towering rocks on the right bank, wooded 
hills on the left, and both sides rich in finely placed 
castles. 

Among those on the right bank is the chateau of 
Clermont, built of brick faced with stone, and opposite 
it, its white turrets detaching themselves clearly 
against a background of j:he most vivid green woodland, 
is the chateau of La Varenne. The hill on which this 
splendid house stands is the last of those on the left 
bank, which henceforward becomes flat and monotonous. 
The right bank, however, maintains a majestic line of 
cliffs until a little way beyond Mauves, after which it, 
too, becomes flat, and the river flows on through low 
reed-fringed marges to the sea. 

Mauves brings to a magnificent end a magnificent 
stretch of river scenery, scenery which inspired Turner 
to make a lovely series of water-colour drawings, 
many of which were presented by Ruskin to the Ash- 
molean Gallery at Oxford. The cliffs of Mauves are 
particularly fine, rising out of the river like the huge 
wall of a fortress. And a dozen miles further on, in the 
midst of a broad plain, lies the great capital of Brittany 
• — Nantes. 



CHAPTER XX 

NANTES 

"I^TOT even the rain, which greeted me at Nantes as it 
-^^ had greeted me at Angers, could do anything to 
cool my sudden and unreasoning excitement. No place 
that I had yet seen had possessed quite such an arresting 
atmosphere of romance. The tall houses towered up 
under a grey sky ; above them, on rising ground, rose 
the dark, rather ragged walls of the cathedral behind 
which lowered a bank of black clouds. There was a 
coming and going of reddish-brown tramcars along the 
slippery streets ; there were views of masts, of a distant 
pont transbordeur, of an arm of water, and beyond it, on 
an island, of the twin towers of a great biscuit factory. 
Commerce, shipping, energy, wealth, a long and pas- 
sionate history, a pulsing, vivid life : all these things 
seem to blend at Nantes, combining to create an effect 
quite singular. 

As it was so wet I took the first hotel that came, and 
asked for a top room ; I had not realised that houses 
could be so high. The steep ascent was made by a 
wide stone staircase with iron railings, lit by square 
windows, up which the gar^on slipped like a kind of 
ape in his silent felt slippers. At each landing, dark 
passages branched off to the right and to the left. 

294 



NANTES 295 

When we got to the top the ceiling was unexpectedly 
low, and the walls were distempered, I remember, in 
the kind of pink which is used in " institutions." I was 
shown into a broad, low room, comfortable enough, 
and spotlessly clean. 

It would have been a very ordinary room but for one 
transforming characteristic — its window. When I 
first entered it this was closed up and white curtains 
shut out the view. But when once it had been 
thrown wide open, the difference was almost miraculous. 
The window opened well above the surrounding roofs ; 
it looked down on them, over them ; it was dizzily high. 
Underneath I could see the tops of umbrellas ; pigmy 
people hurrying to and fro ; and, across an expanse of 
glistening slate roofs streaming with water, rose on the 
top of a slight hill the dark mass of the cathedral. 
Down on the left, by the quay, I noticed the 
tops of a group of towers which I imagined to be the 
castle ; and straight in front of me, as far as I could see, 
was an undulating expanse of gleaming blue-roofed 
houses, broken up by spires and towers, and, in the 
distance, by the aerial tracery of the pont transbordeur, 
and by a lovely entanglement of masts. 

From that giddy perch, in that curious hotel — whose 
name was, I fancy, connected in some way with the 
Anne of Brittany who married two kings of France, 
and of whom I had met with so many traces in my 
journey down the valley of the Loire — I could have 
remained looking, without weariness, the whole after- 
noon. But after a while a sudden patch of cloud-flecked 
blue appeared in the sky above the cathedral, the blue 
increased gradually, and a shaft of pale sunlight shone 



296 THE LOIRE 

out from behind a bank of cloud and made the wet roofs 
gleam. Then the rain stopped, the sun grew stronger, 
burst finally through, and flooded the great sea of 
dripping houses with gold, so that they glittered and 
shone. I rushed down the steep stone staircase, out into 
the soft, cool air, which was fragrant and delicious after 
the rain. 

I liked Nantes so much, and so immediately, that 
I hesitated as long as I could before attempting any 
general exploration ; tasted the place, as it were, in 
sips. That first afternoon I went up the hill at the back 
of my hotel to the Musee de Peinture, a great new 
block of masonry, occupying a long site between 
two streets, the rue Gambetta and the rue du Lycee, 
and opening on the latter. It lies north of the station, 
and a little east of the cathedral, from which it is 
separated by the broad, tree-lined Cours St. Pierre. 
Inside is a great air of spaciousness and clean white 
marble : it is a building which could house worthily 
a vast collection. There are over a thousand 
pictures as it is, but the collection would be a more 
pleasing one to visit if more than half of them were gone. 
At present the interesting pictures are apt to be obscured 
by large canvases marked " Medaille a I'Exposition 
Universelle, Paris, 1900," which a paternal Government, 
kind only to be cruel, has purchased and presented. 
Perhaps the gorgeousness of the gallery in which the 
pictures are housed accounted for a disappointment 
which seems now a little unreasonable. I find from my 
notebook that there were quite a number of memorable 
things. Among them was a curious Alfred Stevens, 
reminding me of one of those at Brussels ; a storm at 



NANTES 297 

sea with a steamer wrestling with it under a curious, 
plum-coloured sky which gives quite a grandiose effect. 
Then there were some interesting Watteaus — " Pierrot," 
" Harlequin," " Columbine," and a picture showing a 
singular group of elegant persons, carrying guns under 
their arms, and moving across the canvas, outlined 
against a curious dull sky. It was called " Fantassins."" 
I noticed also a Lancret, a portrait of La Camargo, 
apparently a copy of the one in the Wallace Collection ; 
a Raffaelli (" Ragpicker Lighting his Pipe ") ; a charming, 
romantic landscape of the seventeenth century, by 
Jacques Fouquiere ; a portrait by Bronzino, of a pretty 
boy with dark brown eyes and curling dark hair ; two 
delightful angels (one of whom has red hair) by G. 
Delatour ; some Moors on horseback by Diaz ; an 
unexpected Greuze, portrait of a young Dignitary of the 
Church, in a curled wig and red robes ; a pleasant 
autumnal landscape, showing a lake with swans on it, 
in a setting of trees with reddish yellow leaves, by 
Boyer ; a Delacroix ; and a wonderful portrait, without 
name or number by which to identify it, of a woman 
with a white fan. There were also several charming pieces 
of artificialitj^ dating from the reign of Louis Quinze, of 
which one of the most noticeable was a Danseuse, by 
Schaall — ^rather a chocolate-box affair, but more delight- 
ful than one thought it ought to be. It shows a woman 
who is throwing out her (rather stumpy) arms in a con- 
ventional attitude of the ballet ; she stands, elaborately 
dressed, in a cleverly suggested landscape, with one 
long, slender, exquisitely shod foot put a little forward. 
Her frock is delicious. The round bodice, like a tube, 
tapering to the waist, is a dove-coloured grey ; from 



298 THE LOIRE 

the waist spring crinoline-like flounces of pink and 
yellow and white ; while a pale gauzy turban, tipped 
with a pink rose, half concealed, crowns a head 
coquettishly bent a little to one side. It is not in the 
best taste of its day, but the workmanship of it is 
extraordinarily sure and brilliant. 

I find that I have left to the end perhaps the 
most striking picture in the whole gallery — Ingres' 
portrait of Mme. de Senonnes. It is amazing how 
effective all Ingres' pictures manage to be. This portrait, 
though it does not immediately entice, claims attention 
with absolute confidence. The lady is seated a little 
forward to catch the light, on a yellow, plush-covered 
sofa, with a shadowed looking-glass at her back. The 
sheen on the velvet of her deep red dress, with its 
flesh-coloured yoke showing the admirable swell of the 
bosom ; the frilled lace collar ; the fringe of lace at the 
wrists ; the rings — every detail is rendered with com- 
pleteness and accuracy, with a meticulousness, perhaps, 
which only the great distinction of the whole design 
could carry off and wear gracefully. 

I have a great affection for commemorative columns, 
and, emerging from the Musee into the Cours St. Pierre, 
I perceived one with delight, at the top of the hill in 
front of me. It stands about ninety feet high, in the 
middle of the elegant place Louis XVI, and is sur- 
mounted by a statue of that monarch which one would 
not have expected the Revolution to have spared. It 
seems odd that anyone should have bothered to erect a 
statue to the poor man, and the explanation of its still 
being there may lie in the fact of its atrocious badness. 
Beyond this pleasant square, which forms a kind of 



NANTES 



299 



central plateau up to which the roads lead, is the Cours 
St. Andre. This is a pleasant avenue, broad, well-shaded 










The Cathedral, Nantes 

with chestnut trees, and beloved of nursemaids and 
young ladies with dogs, which slopes down to the Erdre, 



300 THE LOIRE 

one of the several tributaries of the Loire which join it 
at Nantes. The Cours St. Pierre, descending the other 
slope of the little hill of which the place Louis XVI is 
the summit, passes the choir of the cathedral, and sinks 
down to the quays by the chateau. 

I explored the cathedral with great delight, for its 
west front with its two squat towers has a pleasantly 
ruinous, unrestored look. The nave, rebuilt in the 
fifteenth century, is very lofty and graceful ; the choir 
has been added recently. 

But the chief glories of Nantes Cathedral are its two 
admirable tombs. That in the south transept to 
Frederick, the last Duke of Brittany, and Marguerite 
de Roix his wife, is an elaborate Renaissance work, by 
Michel Colomb, dating from 1507. It is in black and 
white marble, like the tomb of the children of Anne 
of Brittany at Tours, by the same hand. The second 
fine tomb is that to the Breton soldier General de 
Lamoriciere, who fought for the Pope in the wars which 
led ultimately to a united Italy, and was honourably 
defeated at Castelfidardo. The statuary, some in white 
marble and the rest in bronze, is the masterpiece of a 
nineteenth-century sculptor — Paul Dubois. 

All round the cathedral and in its immediate neigh- 
bourhood, are stately eighteenth-century houses, built 
of grey stone, all with large entresols, iron balcony rails, 
and classic pediments, with steep roofs of blue slate. 
These dignified houses are characteristic of a city which 
has so many opulent and dignified streets ; and the 
quays, from the chateau almost to the Gare Maritime 
at the western end of the town, are lined with them 
also, so that Nantes has a splendid water front. 



NANTES 301 

The castle, which is below the cathedral and close to 
the river, is in some ways not unlike that of Angers, but 
on a much smaller scale, and dates mainly from the end 
of the fifteenth century. Of the seven round towers it 
possessed originally, six still remain. The place is used 
now for some military purpose, but one is allowed to 
enter the court and examine the Grand Logis — a fine 
Renaissance building, which has been very thoroughly 
restored — and also the Salle des Gardes. The inside is 
not of great interest, but the place has such a prodigious 
mass of historical association that it is impossible to 
avoid something in the nature of a thrill. Unreasonably, 
since it is doubtful how this could be the prison from 
which the young man leapt into the Loire, I found 
myself humming the song which the genius of Mme. 
Guilbert has made so familiar : 

'' Dans les prisons de Nantes 
II y a prisonnier, 

Que personne ne va voire 
Que la fille du geolier. 

Va lui porter A boire, 
A boire et a manger. 

— On dit part tout' la ville 
Que demain vous mourrez. 

— Las ! si demain je meure, 
Deliez-moi les pieds. 

Toutes les cloches de Nantes, 
Se mirent a sonner. 

La fillette est jeunette^ 
Elle se mit a pleurer. 

Le prisonnier alerte, 
Dans la Loire a saute. 



302 THE LOIRE 

Quand il fut a la nage, 
II se mit a chanter : 

— Vivent les filles de Nantes 
Et la fille au geolier. 

— Si je r'viens dans la ville 
Ca s'ra pour I'epouser." 

The castle was originally the palace of the Dukes of 
Brittany, and passed with the province to the Crown of 
France when Anne of Brittany, aged eighteen, married 
Charles VIII. 

It is curious how all down the lower part of the Loire, 

and all over Nantes, one meets Anne de Bretagne, her 

mark. Many of the popular songs, still sung, are full of 

her, as, for instance, the well-known " C'etait Anne de 

Bretagne " : 

" C'etait Anne de Bretagne 
Duchesse en sabots, 
Revenant de ses domaines 
En sabots mirlitontaines, 

Ah, ah, ah, 
Vivent les sabots de bois. 

Voila' qu' aux portes de Rennes 

Avec des soldats 
Trouva trois beaux capitaines, 
etc. 

lis saluent leur souveraine, 

Avec des sabots, 
Lui donn'nt un pied de verveine, 
etc. 

S'il fleurit vous serez reine, 

Avec des sabots, 
Elle a fleuri, la verveine, 
etc. 

La Duchesse Anne fut reine 

Avec des sabots, 
Les Bretons sont dans la peine, 
etc. 



NANTES 303 

Les Bretons sont dans la peine 

Avec des sabots ; 
lis n'ont plus de souveraine. 
En sabots mirlitontaines. 

Ah, ah, ah, 
Vivent les sabots en bois/' 

The chateau has sheltered in its day many unwilHng 
guests, from that arresting personality Gilles de Laval, 
Marshal de Retz, in 1440, to the Duchess de Berry, the 
mother of the Comte de Chambord, in 1832 ; while in the 
seventeenth century both Cardinal de Retz and Louis 
XIV's discredited Superintendent of Finance, Fouquet, 
were detained here. The most interesting of these 
prisoners is undoubtedly Gilles de Laval. This singular 
individual was born at Autun, in 1404, of an ancient 
Breton stock. His education, for the time in which he 
lived, was remarkable. He knew three languages, Latin, 
French, and Breton, had a considerable knowledge 
of chemistry, and was devoted to music and a skilled 
musician. When he was twenty-five he was sent by 
Charles VII to accompany Jeanne d'Arc, and fought by 
the side of the Maid with great brilliance at Jargeau and 
Patay, and at the relief of Orleans. Various attempts 
have been made to deprive the Devil of his due in this 
respect, but there seems no serious reason for doubting 
that his military career was much to his credit. After 
the war he settled down with his wife to live in great state, 
more like a sovereign than a mere nobleman, on one of 
the many rich properties which he owned in Touraine, 
Anjou and Brittany. He was immensely wealthy for his 
time, kept a regiment of soldiers attached to his person, 
and — for he was very fond of Catholic ceremonial — a 
whole retinue of priests, consisting of a dean and chanters. 



304 THE LOIRE 

It is recorded that he dehghted in mystery plays, his 
favourite being that of the " Siege of Orleans," which 
recorded his own exploits. His signature, of which 
examples have been preserved, was very elaborate at 
this time, and he signed himself simply " Gilles," like a 
reigning monarch. To his contemporaries it must have 
seemed as though the earth had little more to offer him. 

One of his biographers — Mr. Wilson, I fancy — 
describes him as showing " in his face, figure, and in 
every movement, his pride and spirit. He had a high 
rather than broad forehead, his nose was prominent 
and slightly aquiline ; the nostrils were large and thin, 
and, on occasions of anger, spread and quivered in an 
interesting and threatening manner. His lips were 
rather thin, but well-coloured, and had a tinge of delicate 
and refined sensuality." His complexion was fair, his 
eyes large and blue, and his eyebrows and lashes long 
and black. His hair also was long and black, and his 
beard the same. It was soft, and with its raven black- 
ness, became shiny, giving it a bluish sheen, which 
doubtless gave him the nickname of Bluebeard, by 
which his memory is preserved in nursery legends and 
stories. " His fingers," we are told, " were long and 
tapering, his hands small, and their fair complexion, 
when brought into contact with his velvet costume 
and lace ruffles, showed them to good advantage." 

Michelet describes him as being of " bon entendment, 
belle personne et bonne fagon, lettre de plus, et appre- 
ciant fort ce qui parlaient avec elegance la langue 
latine." 

Gradually about this splendid personage the most 
sinister rumours began to gather. There were extra- 



NANTES 305 

ordinary stories of dealings with the devil, wizardry 
and spirit-raising. The district in which he lived seemed 
as though ravaged by some supernatural monster who 
devoured the young and was himself invisible. Young 
boys and girls, of ages ranging from six to sixteen and 
older, sent on errands by their mothers in neighbouring 
villages, mysteriously disappeared, and were never 
seen or heard of again. Then it was noticed that many 
of the lost children had been observed before their 
disappearance speaking to Gilles de Retz, or to one of 
his creatures, or had been seen to visit his castle ; some- 
times it was his very pages who disappeared. 

At the time of his worst excesses he was living at his 
gloomy Breton chateau of Montcerneau, near Nantes, 
of which now only a few blackened ruins remain. Two 
women, wives of his friends, actually watched him assist 
in the removal of the bones of sixty children, in the 
dead of night, from one of the dungeons of the castle. 
In the year 1440 the popular indignation was voiced by 
the ecclesiastical authorities, and the highly-placed 
criminal was seized and brought to the castle of Nantes 
for trial. His long confession, a translation of which is 
given by Mr. Wilson, makes curious reading. He owns, 
in the course of it, that he has stolen very many boys, 
and put them to death, sometimes himself, sometimes 
through the agency of Stephen Corillaud, Henriet, Lord 
Roger Briqueville, and others. " He confessed to have 
killed these boys by various modes of torture, some by 
amputation and separation of their heads from their 
bodies, using daggers and poniards or knives ; others, 
however, with sticks or other implements for striking, by 
beating them on the head with violent blows ; others, 

X 



306 THE LOIRE 

again, by tying them with cords, and fastening them to 
some door or iron hook ... in his own room, that 
they might be strangled and languish." 

The languishing part seems to have afforded him 
particular pleasure. " After their death he took delight 
in kissing, in gazing intently at those who had the more 
beautifully formed heads, and in cruelly opening, or 
causing to be opened, their bodies, that he might see 
their interior ; and that, frequently, whilst these boys 
were dying, he would sit on their stomachs and take 
great pleasure in seeing them thus dying, and that he 
used to laugh heartily at the sight with the said Henriet 
and the said Corillaud. The corpses he caused after- 
wards to be buried or reduced to ashes." He seems 
to have been quite vague as to the number of his victims, 
which has been computed, however, as over a couple of 
hundred. To say that these children were sacrificed to 
Moloch, seems to have been more than an empty term. 
The abominable rites would appear to have had not only 
a sexual, but an occult significance, and to have been 
mixed up with what for want of a more specific term, 
may be called his dealings with the devil. His confession 
gives a long account of how he raised a certain demon 
called Barron, with the aid of an Italian from Lombardy, 
one Frangois Prelati, who carried about his person a book 
which contained many names of demons and formulae 
for conjurations. The invocations took place always 
inside a circle chalked on the floor, which also was 
marked with a cross and other signs. A long account is 
given in the confession of the details of an elaborate 
bargain which he made with the devil, or rather with a 
devil, through the medium of another of his wizards. 



NANTES 307 

called Mesnill. Mesnill informed Gilles, in the words 
of the confession, that, " in order to do and fulfil 
the things which the said defendant intended to ask 
and obtain from the said devil, the said devil desired to 
receive from the said defendant a grant, written and made 
by him, defendant, with his own hand, and signed with 
the blood of one of his fingers, in which grant the afore- 
said defendant should promise to give to the said devil 
whenever he appeared during the invocation of the said 
defendant, certain things which he, defendant, could not 
remember ; and that the same defendant, for this pur- 
pose and end, signed the said grant with his own hand, 
with blood drawn from his little finger, and subjoined his 
own name to the said grant. That he could not accu- 
rately remember the other statements contained in this 
grant, except that he promised by the honour of the said 
grant to deliver up to the said devil the articles men- 
tioned in the grant, provided that the devil would give 
or grant the same Gilles, knowledge, power, and riches. 
But the defendant is quite certain, as he says, that 
whatsoever he may have promised the devil by this or 
other grants, he always and decidedly made exception of, 
and reserved his soul and his life. And he says that 
this grant was not handed to the devil at this time, 
since he did not appear to the said Gilles, defendant, at 
or during the said incantation." One wonders whether 
the lives of children were among the articles that Gilles 
failed to remember, which were to be delivered up to 
the said devil. 

In the face of such a singular career mere terms of 
abuse seem grotesquely inadequate. It remains to be 
said that this inhuman individual, in spite of all his 



308 THE LOIRE 

strange intimacy with some supernatural underworld, 
was made by the mass of his normal contemporaries 
to undergo the death penalty. He was hanged up and 
burned while still alive, on the gibbet of Piesse — a little 
open prairie on the island of la Madeleine, in the Loire, 
reached by two bridges communicating with the place 
Bouffoy— on October 26th, 1440. 

A greater effect of sheer criminality, perhaps because 
it lacks that touch of the abnormal which characterised 
Gilles de Retz, is produced by the memory of the doings 
of the infamous Carrier in 1793. The worst of these 
may not have taken place actually in the castle, but must 
have been observable from the windows of some of the 
massive eighteenth-century houses which line the quays 
just beyond it. Carrier was a kind of Judge Jefferies 
of the Revolution. Although Nantes had been strongly 
on the side of progress from the first, and had success- 
fully resisted the attacks of the Royalists of la Vendee, 
the Comite du Salut Public sent him down to suppress 
that rebellion. The Bloody Assizes which succeeded the 
rebellion of Monmouth at the end of the seventeenth 
century were as nothing compared with Carrier's pro- 
ceedings at the end of the eighteenth. Swinburne's fine 
poem occurs at once to the memory, describing how : 

" Carrier came down to the Loire and slew 
Till all the Avays and the wa\'es waxed red : 
Bound and drowned^ slaying two by two. 
Maidens and young men, naked and wed." 

The Vendean prisoners were executed without trial. 
First, the victims were beheaded as quickly as the 
executioner could turn them off. Then, as this method 
was too slow, they were stood against a wall and shot at 



NANTES 309 

by the soldiery in parties of hundreds at a time. Even 
this was not sufficient to gratify Carrier's lust for blood, 
and he finally revived, in a more awful form, the noyades 
that were first employed at Amboise. Barges full 
of prisoners were floated out into the middle of the 
Loire, and then scuttled. In four months between 




On the Quay, Nantes 

six and nine thousand men and women were killed, 
without trial, by Carrier's orders. It is pleasant to 
know that soon afterwards he was himself denounced 
and guillotined. 

A single railway line, connecting the terminus with 
the line for St. Nazaire and Le Croisic, runs along the 
quay by the waterside. Beyond it, and opposite the 
chateau, is the He Gloriette, a rather dismal island, 



310 THE LOIRE 

given over mostly to factories, and containing a large 
hospital, and further on still are some prettier islands. 
Under the wing, so to speak, of I'lle Gloriette is a tiny 
islet on the Nantes side, called the He Feydeau, just 
opposite the place du Commerce and the large post 
office, at the point where the canalised Erdre flows 
into the Loire. The houses on this islet, along 
the Quai Duguay-Trouin, are very picturesque; they 
lean against one another at curious angles, and are 
all out of the straight, as though a mild earthquake 
had shaken them up. The waterways here are full 
of different kinds of river craft, especially the Erdre, 
which, whenever I came across it (and it almost 
bisects the middle of the town) was literally choked 
with barges, many of which were filled with sawn planks. 
You could hardly see the water at all, for the barges 
filled every inch of space. Opposite the western end 
of the He Feydeau, the prosperous-looking Bourse with 
its classic columns, looks on to a scene of great anima- 
tion, always crowded with people, where the tramcars 
cross and re-cross. To the west of it the straight, 
imposing rue Jean Jacques Rousseau leads uphill to the 
circular place Graslin, which is the hub of the town. I 
remember very vividly climbing that hill for the first 
time. It was early in the evening of a day which had 
been raining but had cleared, and the sombre lines of 
stone houses, many stories high, looked almost black 
as they converged to a point at the top, where the sky 
made a sudden glorious splash of the brightest pink. 
From all sides the roads, broad or narrow, climb up to 
the place Graslin, whose position in this respect is not 
unlike that of the place Sadi Carnot at Marseilles, though 



NANTES 811 

the former is far more magnificent. It is most dignified 
and splendid, and surrounded by heavy stone houses. On 
the west side is the gloomy Hotel de France, with a 
huge, cavernous cafe under it. Here, by the way, are 
to be found an excellent orchestra and English illus- 
trated papers. By its side is the theatre, a classical 
building with heavy Corinthian columns, and adorned 
with statues of eight muses on its roof. I remember, 
while I was drinking my aperitif, writing down on the 
back of an envelope (which I have unfortunately lost) 
the long, pompous inscription, relating how the theatre 
was completed in 1791, and opened under the patronage 
of King Louis XVI, the Duke of Somewhere being the 
Governor, and the Duke of Somewhere else being the 
Intendant. And Carrier's exploits took place only two 
years later ! Down the rue Crebillon, in front of me, I 
could just see the fountain in the middle of the place 
Royale, another centre of animation, containing a good 
cafe with a band, whose name I forget. Between the 
rue Crebillon and the rue Jean Jacques Rousseau was 
another cafe, on the other side of the square, the Cafe 
de rUnivers, and at the south-west corner was the Cafe 
de la Cigale, which seemed to be a supper-place. At the 
back of the latter, rather hidden and very quiet, was one 
of the most splendid squares that I have ever seen 
in any town — the Cours Cambronne or Cours de la 
Republique. I see that I have called it a square ; 
it was, strictly speaking, oblong — a garden, full of the 
greenest, softest trees, surrounded on all sides by 
majestic hotels built in the early part of the eighteenth 
century, with long, even rows of windows and heavy 
stone pediments. The sandy gravel paths under the 



312 THE LOIRE 

chestnut trees were a rich brown after the rain, 
and the freshened leaves of the trees were radiantly 
green. Not a sound from the busy streets outside dis- 
turbed the stillness. The rows of dignified windows 
looked down on to the garden without there being a sign 
of movement in any of them ; and the rather weather- 
beaten stonework of the houses had a mellow look 
which seemed to enhance the atmosphere of peace. 
The age recalled was not, perhaps, very remote ; but it 
seemed possible here to re-create for oneself the Nantes 
of the last days of the French Monarchy, when the 
place Graslin was new, the imposing theatre just built — ■ 
the Nantes which Arthur Young visited and described. 
Young, by the way, went (when he arrived) to the 
theatre with commendable speed, and was much struck 
by the contrast between the misery of the surrounding 
country-side and the splendour of the Breton capital. 
" Arrive — go to the theatre, new built of fine white stone, 
and has a magnificent portico front of eight elegant 
Corinthian pillars, and four others within, to part the 
portico from a grand vestibule. Within all is gold and 
painting, and a coup d'oeil at entering, that struck me 
forcibly. It is, I believe, twice as large as Drury Lane, 
and five times as magnificent. It was Sunday, and 
therefore full. Mon Dieu ! cried I to myself, do all the 
wastes, the deserts, the heath, ling, furze, broom, and 
bog that I have passed for three hundred miles lead to 
this spectacle ? What a miracle, that all this splendour 
and wealth of the cities in France should be so un- 
connected with the country ! There are no gentle 
transitions from ease to comfort, from comfort to 
wealth ; you pass at once from beggary to profusion — 



NANTES 313 

from misery in mud cabins to Mile. St. Huberti, in 
splendid spectacles at 500 liv. a night. The country 
deserted, or, if a gentleman in it, you find him in some 
wretched hole, to save that money which is lavished 
with profusion in the luxuries of a capital." It is perhaps 
no wonder that he remarks later that he found Nantes 
" as enflamme in the cause of liberty as any town in 
France can be." 

Of the evening amusements of Nantes I cannot speak 
with much authority ; I did not explore the town 
thoroughly in this respect. One resort alone I remember 
with any distinctness, and that is the " Petit Casino 
Nantais," which lurks in a side street below the Grand 
Theatre, heralded by a round white globe of gas above 
its door. It is a kind of tenth-rate music-hall, to which 
the right of admission is obtained by the purchase 
of an inexpensive bock ; a big room covered with 
chairs and tables, with a stage at one end. On the 
evening of my visit there was nearly a riot. The 
audience consisted of several groups of nondescrijDt 
men, and a rather dowdy contingent of demi-mondaines, 
each of whom nursed a little toy dog on her lap. 

Whenever " Miss Cri-Cri," a pallid young lady, at- 
tempted with her lamentably inefficient, metallic voice 
some sentimental ballad that Paris tired of ten years 
back, the little dogs would bark with one accord. Miss 
Cri-Cri would then stand looking piteously at the 
audience ; though, indeed, she ought to have known 
that the French audience has no pity. The little Jew 
proprietor, when the barking began, would rush out from 
behind the wings, gesticulating. But as soon as he 
appeared each little dog closed its eyes, put on a demure 



314 THE LOIRE 

expression, and buried its little cold nose in its mis- 
tress's muff. It was impossible to spot the culprit. No 
sooner, however, was the Hebrew once more behind the 
scenes and Miss Cri-Cri in the middle of another 
lamentable verse, than they would begin again, louder 
than ever, with their little sharp, fierce yelps. The 
audience took sides. Some appealed chivalrously for 
Miss Cri-Cri, others, out of mechanceU, sided with the 
little dogs, and chaffed the now half-frenzied proprietor. 
Miss Cri-Cri gave up the unequal struggle, and I 
left Conde (the star turn) trying to rally the company 
round the tricolour in a stirring patriotic ballad. I 
have been in many music-halls since which have made 
me recall, regretfully, those wicked " poms." 



CHAPTER XXI 

TO ST. NAZAIRE 

THE Loire at Nantes splits itself into six arms, 
divided by islands: the town lies chiefly on the 
north side, that is to say, on the right bank. The 
animation all along the waterways bordered by the great 
quays is considerable. An excellent fleet of little 
steamers carrying passengers from point to point dash 
about with an air of hurry ; flotillas of black, half- 
submerged barges swoop down behind a tug, or are 
dragged uneasily upstream. Nantes was once one of 
the most considerable ports of France ; but its approach 
is now not wide enough for the larger vessels, which 
put in, instead, at St. Nazaire, at the mouth of the 
estuary. But heavy coal-tramps, odd craft of moderate 
size, barges and fine sailing-ships line the wharves 
and make the walk along the quays, especially beyond 
the Bourse, full of colour, movement, and interest. 
Nantes has still some of that fine flavour which attaches 
to its name in the innumerable ballads which enshrine 
its legends and traditions. The sight of a brig coming 
into the port under sail made one think of that breezy 
old song, with its jolly refrain that dips and rises like 
a yacht in the bay, which opens : 

" A Nant's, a Nant's est arrive, 
Saute, blonde, et leve le pied, 
Trois beau\' navir's charges de ble, 
Saute, bloude, ma joli' blonde, 
Saute, blonde, et leve le pied. 

31S 



316 THE LOIRE 

Three ladies go down to them to buy corn : 
Trois daiii'sj s'eii vout les marchauder, 

and — as they are beautiful — they are promptly carried 
off by the high-spirited sailors. The ladies weep and 
wail and say they can hear their children crying for 
them on shore. 

" You never had any children ! " laugh the mariners ; 
and the last verse ends : 

S'il plait a Dieu, vous en aurez^ 
Saute, blonde, ma joli' blonde. 
Saute, blonde, et leve le pied." 

There are many sailor-songs connected with Nantes, 
many more indecorous than the above — such, for 
instance, as " Les Trois Matelots de Nantes," and the 
" Chanson des Mariniers " — but few so amusing. 

From Nantes there is a regular service of steamers 
running daily to St. Nazaire, touching on the way at 
Chantenay, Basse-Lidre, Lidret, Coueron, le Pellerin, 
le Migron, and Paimbceuf, which start from the piers 
of the Compagnie Bretonne just below the Bourse. 

From here I began the last stage of my journey 
down the river, at eight o'clock on a rainy August 
morning. I took my seat on the upper deck under the 
awning, on the little white steamer, the Ville de Nantes, 
and off we went downstream. The boat was full of 
elderly women in sabots, wearing white Breton caps 
and nursing large wicker baskets full of vegetables, 
and contained, besides a number of nondescript 
travellers, a little talkative hunchback in a black, hooded 
cloak. 

We passed the end of the He Gloriette with the rain 





i^"^ 

'% 



TO ST. NAZAIRE 317 

driving in under the awning, and then steamed by the 
picturesque ship-building yards on the He de la Madeleine, 
where the naked ribs of an iron vessel under construction 
looked rusty and desolate in the rain. On the right the 
stately line of stone houses bordering the quays slipped 
by us, partly obscured by a row of trucks which were 
being dragged to the main station by a panting engine. 
Against the wharf at the far western end of the town, 
under a low cliff, was moored a splendid three-masted 
sailing-vessel with swelling bows, a white mermaid 
for a figure-head and a long, tapering bowsprit. She 
looked as clean as a new pin, her sides were painted a 
pale, fresh green, and she hailed from some port in the 
Pacific. Her flag was unfamiliar, and had a bright 
patch of green in it. 

After Nantes came Chantenay, two and a half miles 
down, with big factories and workshops ; then the two 
little ports, standing back from the river, of Basse-Indre 
and Indret, with gleaming white churches with stone 
spires. Schooners with furled sails and a few small tugs 
and lighters were moored in their tiny harbours. 

The river below Nantes becomes broader and broader, 
flowing between low banks fringed sometimes with tall 
reeds, sometimes with rows of poplars. Lines of low 
hills, crowned with windmills at regular intervals, 
accompany it (far in the background) on the northern 
side. There are numerous backwaters, forgotten 
channels, and harbours where half a dozen little sail- 
ing-vessels find anchorage ; and islands are frequent. 
One of these, that of Indret — opposite the town of the 
same name on the left bank — contains some huge naval 
engineering workshops, known as I'Usine d'Indret (which 



318 THE LOIRE 

Young mentions), where marine engines are manu- 
factured. At Coueron, on the right bank, three and a 
half miles further down, there are big glassworks and 
a mass of curious factory buildings too thrilling and (in 
their way) of too " romantic " an appearance to be 
condemned merely as ugly. The river would be far 
less interesting if it were not for these great works, 
whose very size lends them a certain grandeur. 

The rain had cleared away now, and the sun shone 
again out of a cloudy and unsettled sky, making the 
whole landscape look wonderfully fresh. The waters 
of the river were a troubled yellow. We met just below 
Coueron a fine barque coming up the stream under sail, 
and several Sunderland coal-tramps, one of which I 
remembered having seen at Rouen (whose port is of 
rather similar capacity to Nantes) earlier in the year. 
We then touched at le Pellerin on the left bank, and at 
le Migron, which has opposite it Belle-Ile, the largest 
island of the Loire. The air now became filled with a kind 
of wild freshness ; a black cloud round the sun made 
the wide expanse of water jet-black for a moment, 
and the wind furrowed it into tiny waves that became 
tipped with fringes of white foam, like flowers. The 
estuary soon became broader still. Turning to look 
back towards Nantes, we could see nothing before us 
save the white, swirling track left by the steamer, 
stretching away into the horizon across a limitless 
stretch of water. On either side were wide green plains 
bounded by low hills in the far distance, and dotted 
here and there with villages whose churches seemed 
all to be new or to have, at all events, new and 
glaring spires of white stone. 



TO ST. NAZAIRE 319 

Then Paimboeuf ! The whole population seemed to 
have hurried on to the quay to look at us as we steamed 
up to the landing-stage ; about twenty men, that is to 
say, in different stages of laziness and undress, boys 
sprawling over the stone coping, contemplative old 
women with deeply wrinkled, apple-red cheeks, and 
merry girls who came tripping down with a healthy 
frankness to see what kind of a crowd this time the boat 
had brought them. The oddest air of desolation and 
decay hung over the little town, which sprawls — a long 
street of irregular white houses — along the river-bank. 
A stone jetty or mole runs out to protect its little port, 
now occupied only by a few small sailing-vessels and de- 
crepit barges. Stranded on the mud was the bare side of 
an old mastless iron steamer from which the machinery 
had been removed. It was red and green with rust, 
slimy and disconsolate, and seemed cruelly to emphasise 
the fact that Paimboeuf has had its day. Before St. 
Nazaire rose into prominence Paimboeuf was the port of 
Nantes, but the treacherous river has filled its roadstead 
with sand. It is a dead town. The natives looked at 
us with interest, languid on the part of the men and 
eager on the part of the bright-eyed girls, but no one 
boarded the boat or left it, and in a few minutes we swung 
off again, and leaving on our right Donges, with its white 
church, made across the wide estuary to St. Nazaire. 
It was like the sea now. Afar in the distance we could 
discern across the dark water, all flecked with foam, 
romantic chimneys, the spars of ships ; and further to 
the left, a white dream-city. The prospect took on that 
splendour, that kind of unearthly magnificence which the 
sea only can give ; a magnificence which Turner knew 



320 



THE LOIRE 



so wonderfully how to convey to his canvas. No town 
has ever given me such an impression of romantic 
wonder as did St. Nazaire, approached by water. A shaft 
of sunlight escaping from behind a rain-cloud made it 
gleam with a radiance as of some other world, while the 
great waste of water remained a soot-like black — a 
striking contrast. And nothing that I had seen hitherto 




Paimboeuf 

had so impressed me with the power and importance 
of the river which I had traced from a tiny rill in the 
far - off Cevennes, up through the heart of France to 
this vast estuary. In a few minutes my long journey 
would be done, my vow accomplished. 

But as the Ville de Nantes grew nearer and nearer to 
St. Nazaire the rich glow of my excitement noticeably 
cooled. Light, alas, is a magician ; imagination a 



TO ST. NAZAIRE 321 

skilled architect. The chimneys and factories just 
outside the town, and the network of masts and spars 
of the shipping in the docks, were fine enough — but 
St. Nazaire itself dwindled in the coldness of actuality 
to a poor, dull, squalid place. 

Its streets cross one another at right angles — wide, 
new boulevards of a desolating lack of interest. The 
place gives the impression of being much smaller than 
it is — it boasts really more than 30,000 people — and 
has a mushroom air that is in marked contrast to that 
atmosphere of old establishment exhaled by Nantes. 
It is bleak, too, set in a plain and bounded by a yellow 
flood, half sea, half estuary. Yet, near it, to the north, 
are the seaside " resorts " of Batz, le Pouliguen, and 
le Croisic, and the old town of Guerande, still sur- 
rounded by its fifteenth-century walls ; while to the 
south of it, across the river-mouth and beyond the 
Pointe de St. Gildas, stands Pornic, now a fashionable 
summer bathing-place, where Browning laid the scene 
of his "Fifine at the Fair." 

After all, one reflected, St. Nazaire is in Brittany ; 
it has no right to such an " American " air. Down 
by the rocks surrounding the lighthouse of Villes- 
Martin, some way out of the town to the north, along the 
boulevard de I'Ocean, I saw a charming Breton girl 
in a ribboned cap — for all the world like the " Belle du 
Village " of the song : 

" Voyez-moi chemiuant sur mon ane, 
Coiffee de mon beau bonnet a rubans ; 
Ne suis-je pas belle ? 
Voyez-moi m'en allant a la messe, 
Suivie de mes grandparents 
S'en allant dodelinette, dodelinant 



322 THE LOIRE 

Les beaux gas, mes amis du village, 

Vous qui me croyez volage, 

Je lie le suis pas. 

Nul (le vous ne m'aura pour epouse, 

Car je serais jalouse. 

De me voir delaissee, je ne le veux." 

Better than the town with its wide, straight roads 
promenaded by groups of sailor-men, better than the 
miles of quays surrounding the great basins (in which 
lie the South American liners of the Compagnie Trans- 
atlantique) or the landing-stage which faces the opposite 
bank of the river, I liked this " sea-front " which looked 
across a limitless expanse of brown water. Now and then 
a big steamer would rise up on the horizon heralded by 
a line of smoke ; or a sailing-vessel, seeming to move 
so slowly as almost to be becalmed, would gradually 
indicate its approach by a swelling in size, until, by 
imperceptible degrees, it came almost within hail. 
Looking out like that towards the west, one could amuse 
oneself idly by drawing a comparison between the life of 
the river, which knew no death but only a merging with 
something infinitely greater than itself, and our human 
life. The Loire had throughout its course been curi- 
ously human ; capricious, extravagant, given to sudden 
rages and moments of a gracious golden charm. Here 
at St. Nazaire it had not died, come to a full-stop, 
but changed and become one with the sea, like a soul 
which has reached Nirvana ; or, to take an example from 
another faith, a soul which, after the sufferings of purga- 
tory, has reached perfection and become part of the 
Body of Christ, merging its " personality " in an all- 
embracing personality, ampler even than the ocean. 

The sun went down over the waters in a crimson 



TO ST. NAZAIRE 323 

glory which seemed to suffuse them with blood; then 
the sky became softened, with curious tints of green, 
and a veil of dove-like grey, 

I walked for hours thus along the shore to the north 
of the town ; inland was the wide plain, the " lande " 
stretching far to the north and east, where the paludiers 
were to be seen at work. These marsh-men, workers in 
the salt marshes or marais saillants, have curious customs 
and traditions and a remarkable though seldom-seen 
" costume." It consists of a black, half-moon-shaped 
hat framing the head, a dark, braided tunic open to 
the middle and disclosing a waistcoat and shirt of 
some white material, white knickerbockers with ribbons 
hanging from the knee, white stockings and curious 
rough shoes. I did not see anyone in the course of 
my ramble in this elaborate dress. Had I done so, 
I might have been tempted to the anti-climax of an 
additional week in Brittany ! 

As it was, I travelled straight back that night 
by the express, to Paris ; my pilgrimage accomplished. 
But before I left the sea, to find my half-cold dinner 
in a gloomy inn, I had a memory to take away with 
me — plaintive and beautiful, with something in it of 
the sadness of life, life which probably for every- 
one, everywhere, is bitterly full of forced surrenders 
and crushed longings. In the open door of a small 
cottage looking out to sea I watched a young girl who 
sat staring a little wistfully at the dying sun. As I 
got near, I could hear that she was singing to herself. 
She was singing, in a small, quite clear voice that 
had a natural " sob " in it more affecting than the 



324 THE LOIRE 

most florid hiccough of the Itahan tenor, the naive 
ballad of " Ma Douce Anette " : 

" Ma douce Anette, par ce beau soir, 
Viens sur la lande nous asseoir ; 
C'est le printemps et la joiic fleurit, 
Deja les oiseaux font leurs nids — 
Ma douce Anette, par ce beau soir, 
Viens sur la lande nous asseoir. 

Mon ami Pierre, laisse ma main, 

Je ferai seule le cliemin. 

Nul ne prend garde aux oiseaux du bon Dieu, 

Mais I'on medit des amoureux. 

Mon ami Pierre, laisse ma main, 

Je ferai seule le cliemin." 

Faire seul le chemin — the wisest way, alas, is seldom 
the most alluring ! 



THE END 



INDEX 



Abbe, The fat, encounter with, 2, 3, 4 
Abd-el-Kader, 231 
Accordian canoe, 68, 91, 120 
Alacoque, Marguerite Marie, 94 
Allier, River, xi, xv, 71, 103, 121 
Alponne, 136, 137 
Alps, The, 21 
Amboise, The town and chateau of, 

xxi, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232 
Amboise, Cardinal d', 226 
Ance du Nord, River, 71 
Ancenis, xx, 284, 289, 290, 291 
Andrezieux, 79 

An£;ers, The town of, xv, xviii, 90, 
272, 276-9, 280, 281, 282, 283, 
284, 286, 301 
Angers, David d', 278, 288 

Anjou, xiv, xxi, 247, 257, 265, 268, 
274, 275, 283, 285, 286, 287, 303 

Ardeche, Department of, 10, 18, 20 

Ardouin-Dumazet, M. (quoted), 89, 
110, 124, 162-3, 227-8, 287 

Argent, 157 

Arlempdes, 27, 29, 36, 37 

Aron, River, 106, 107 

Arroux, River, 102 

Arssac, 2 

Arzon, River, xi, 61, 62, 67 

Arzon, Chateau d', 67 

Ascension Daj', 16, 27 

Aubrais, Les, 188, 189 

Aurec, 74 

Autun, 303 

Auvergnat, The Sombre, 2 

Avignon, 1 

Aygue-Nere, The (Eau-Noire), 24 

Azay-le-Rideau, 239, 261, 262 

B 

Baedeker, his guides, 24, 127, 146, 

276, 277, 278 
Bagneux, 272 
Balbigny, 79, 83 
Balzac, 238, 270 



Bande Noire, La, 232 

Bannay, lie de, 133 

Bapterosses, M., 143 

Baralliere, Chateau de la, 78 

Barres, Maurice (quoted), 52 

Bas, Town of, 71, 72, 73, 74 

Bas-en-Basset, Plain of, 71 

Basse-Indre, 316, 317 

Batie, Chateau de la, 82 

Batz, 321 

Baulme, Cascade de la, 37 

Bautru, Guillaume, 284 

Beate, La, 51 

Beauce, xii, 156, 184, 189, 206, 208 

Beaufort, Chateau, 40-1 

Beaufort, town of, 274 

Beaugency, xviii, xix, 188, 189, 

192-202, 203, 206 
Beaujeu, Anne of, 146 
Beaulieu, 139, 140 

Beauregard, Chateau de, 216, 217 
Beauzac, 71 

" Bel Ami," 14 

Bellay, Joachim du, 247, 285, 290, 
291 

Belle-ile, 318 

Berry, Province of, 121, 124, 125, 
126, 128, 131, 138 

Berry, Duchesse de, 303 

Berthelot, Gilles, 261 

Berthier, Marshal, 222^ 

Bethune, Armand de, 73 

Beuvron, River, 217, 218 

Blois, xiii, xviii, xx, xxii, 187, 188, 
189, 208, 209-23, 224, 225, 226 

Boen, 82 

Boiret, lie, 264 

Bouhomme, M. and Mme., 33, 34, 

35, 36, 55, 61 
Bonnefoy, La Chartreuse de, 18, 19, 

24, 37 
Bonny-sur-Loire, 139 
Borne, River, 48, 57, 105 
Bossuet, 243 
Bouchier, Jacques, 173 



325 



326 



INDEX 



Boulogne, Forest of, 218 
Bourbon, Jehan de, 73 
Bourbonnais, The, 103, 176 
Bourbon-Lancy, 104, 105 
Bourges, 114, 127, 152 
Bourgeuil, 257 
Bonrr6, Jean, 254 
Bouzols, 2, 37, 43 
Boyer, 297 
Bracieux, 218 
Brant6me (quoted), 220 
Br^h^mont, 258 
Briare, 88, 107, 143 
Briqueville, Lord Roger, 305 
Brittany, xxii, 287, 293, 303, 321, 

323 
Brittany, Anne of, 226, 241, 256, 295, 

300, 302 
Brives, 2, 37, 43, 44, 46, 57, 75 
Broglie-Say, Prince de, 226 
Bronzino. 297 

Brosse, Pierre de la, 254, 255 
Brussels, 296 
Bull-necked man, Encounter with, 2 



Cabannas, Las, 67 

Csesar, Julius, xiii 

Calmin, St., 8 

Cand^s, 261, 263, 264, 265 

Garnet, Le, xii 

Carrier, 308, 309, 311 

Castelfidardo, 300 

Cathelineau, 288 

Caveau, St^phanois, 81 

Celettes, 217 

Cercy-la-Tour, 103, 105, 106 

Cevennes, xi, 1, 14, 20, 21, 28, 38, 

71, 78, 121, 320 
Chadrac, 57, 59 
Chadron, 42, 43 
Chagny, 107 
Chalonnes, 285 
Chamalieres, 67, 69, 70 
Chambon, Le, 69 
Chambon-FeugeroUes. Le, 77 
Chambord, 216, 218-23 
Champtoc^, 284, 287 
Charaptoceanx, 291, 293 
Chanteloup, Pagode de, 231 
Chantenay, 316, 317 
Chanzy, General, xiii, xix, 205 
Chapelle-aux-Naux, La, 258 
Chapelle-St.-Mesmin, La, 184, 185, 

186, 282 
Chaptal, Conite de Chanteloup, 232 
Chardonnat, 37 



Charenton, 125 

Charge, 229 

Charite, La, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 

128 
Charlemagne, xiii, 162 
Charles, the physician, 205 
Charles V, 229 
Charles VII, 73, 173, 239, 262, 263, 

265, 303 
Charles VIII, 230, 241, 256, 302 
Charnie, The Woods of, 133 
Charrin, 105 

Chateau-Blanc-Cineys, Hotel du, 27 
Chateaubriand, 16 
Chateau-Chinon, 106 
Chateaudun, 240 
Chateauneuf, 149, 158, 163, 164, 165, 

172 
Chatillon, xv, 140, 141, 142 
Chaucer, 192 
Chaudeyrolles, 71 
Chaumont, 225, 226, 228, 229, 239 
Chavannes, Puvis de, 105 
Chenehutte-les-Tuffeaiix, 273 
Chenonceaux, 219, 226, 239 
Cher, xi, 240, 244, 250, 251, 253, 

257 
Chercheraus, Crater of, 29 
Chevenon, Chateau de, 108 
Cheverny, 216, 217, 249 
Chinon, xviii, 173, 239, 260, 261, 

262, 263, 272 
Choiseul, Due de, 232 
Chouze-sur-Loire, 263 
Cinq-Mars, Town and Castle of, 244, 

251, 252, 253 
Cinq-Mars, Marquis de, 252 
Cisse, River, 225, 232 
Clermont, Chateau of, 293 
Clery, Notre Dame de, 194 
Clopinel, Jean, 192 
Colanse, Torrent, 42 
Colomb, Michel, 241, 300 
Colombiers, 251 
Combes, M., 274 
Communaute des Marchands de la 

Loire. See Merchants of the Loire, 

Community of. 
Conde, 158 

Confolens, Priory of, 71 
Constant, Benjamin, 228 
Cook, Mr. Theodore Andrea (quoted), 

221 
Coquille, Guy (quoted), xxi 
Corillaud, Stephen, 305, 306 
Cornillon, Chateau de, 75 
Cosne, xix, 129, 133-7 



INDEX 



327 



Couarques, 128 
Coubon, 37, 38, 42, 43 
Coueron, 316, 318 
Coulon (quoted), xvi 
Courcelles-le-Roi, 139, 140 
Cour-Cheverny, 217, 218 
Courrier, Paul Louis, 247 
Cours, 208 

Courthope, Sir G. (quoted), 237 
Crequi, 281 
Cressomie, River, 105 
Croisic, le, 309, 321 
Cunault, 274 
Cussac, 37 

D 

D'Aussigny, Thibault, Bishop of 

Orleans, 191 
Decize, 105, 106, 107 
Delacroix, 297 
Delatour, G., 297 
Delornie, Philibert, 284 
Descartes, 242 
Diaz, 297 

Digoin, 91, 92, 95-102 
Dijon, 6 

Dino, Duchesse de, 257 
Dion Cassius, xiii 
Donges, 319 
Donziois, The, 128, 134 
Dubarry, Mme., 232 
Dubois, Paul, 300 
Ducos, Roger, 231 
Dumas, Alexandre, 192, 266 
Dunois, the bastard of Orleans, 195 
Duplessis-Mornay, 269 
D'Urfe, Honore, 82 
Durianne, 59 

E 

Ecrevisses, at Vorey, 62 

Erdre, River, 299, 310 

Eatables, Les, 1, 7, 11, 13, 14. 15, 

17, 18, 19, 26, 60 
Estrees, Gabrielle d', 261 
Evelyn, John (quoted), xiv, 89, 176, 

177, 178, 222, 223, 232, 233, 235, 

244, 251 
Eyravazet, 66, 67 



Favart, Mme., 221 

Feurs, 79, 80, 81, 83 

Figaro, The, xiii 

Firniiny, 77 

Foire aux Violettes, at Ste Eulalie, 25 



FoUetier, the river, 72 
Fontenils, Les, 204 
Fontenoy, Battle of, 220 
Fontevrault, 265, 266 
Forez, Le, xi, xx, 75, 78, 79 
Foulques Nerra, 256, 273 
Fouquet, 303 
Fouquiere, Jacques, 297 
Fourchambault, 107, 113, 120, 121 
Fourneau, Le, 104, 105 
Fragonard, 175 
Francis I, 160, 212, 217, 218, 219, 

220, 222, 229, 230, 236, 261 
Francis II, 173 
Franco-Prussian War, The, xii, xviii, 

134, 168, 197 
Fronde, The, xviii 

G 

Gabriel, Architect, 170 
Gage, the river, 29 
Gallois, Jehan le, 106, 107 

Garenne, lie de la, 73 

Gaston d'Orleans, 216, 252 

Gatinais, The, xii, 226 

Gazeille, the river, 7, 11, 13 

Gennes, 274, 276 

Gerbier de Jones, Mont, xi, xii, 1, 

17, 20, 21, 23, 24 
Gerbison, Mont, 68, 69 
Germigny-des-Pres, 158, 162-3 
Gien, xix, 143, 145-56, 157, 168 
Gilly-sur-Loire, 103, 104 
Givre, Mont, 121 
Goldoni, 181 
Goldsmith, 247, 248 
Goudet, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 

34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 61, 
63, 96 

Gouteyron, Hotel, 60 
Grangent, Fortress of, 78 
Grasse, 25 
Greuze, 297 
Groslot, Jacques, 173 
Guerande, 321 
Guerigny, 135 
Guignes, Estate of, 205 
Guignolet, 279 
Guilbert, Mme. , 301 
Guise, Cardinal de, 214, 215 
Guise, Due de, 213, 214, 215 

H 
Haute Loire, Department of, xi, 29, 

35, 43, 44. 69, 76 
Henri II, 220, 261 



328 



INDEX 



Henri III, 214, 215 
Henri IV, 157, 170, 212 
Henric-Bradu, M. and Mme., 154, 

155, 156 
Henriet, 305, 306 
Henry II (of England), 236, 240, 251, 

262, 263, 266 
H^rMia (quoted), 103 

I 
Iguerande, 93, 94 
Imphy, 107, 108, 113 
Indre, River, xii, 256, 257, 260, 262 
Indre-et- Loire, Department of, xii, 

229 
Indret, Department of, 165 
Indret, 316, 317 
Ingrandes, 287, 288 
Ingres, 298 
Issarles, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 



James, Henry (quoted), xxi, 222, 

226, 229, 236, 279 
James, G. P. R., 252 
Jargeau, xviii, 164, 165, 166, 303 
Jeanne d'Arc, xiii, xviii, 139, 149, 

165, 167, 169, 173, 176, 177, 178, 

189, 195, 256, 262, 263, 303 
Joanne, his guides, xxii, 1, 15, 19, 

24, 29, 93, 205 
Juliette, Ste (La Lepreuse), 67 

K 
Konigsmarck, Aurora von, 220 



Lacemakers, 9, 10, 13, 50, 51 

Lagrange, Chateau de, 128 

Lalouvesc, 51 

Lamartine, 205 

Lamoriciere, General de, 303 

Lancret, 175, 297 

Langeais, 247, 253, 254-6, 257 

Larochejacquelin, 270 

Laure, Sieur Claude, xiv 

Lavoilte-Polignac, 58, 60 

Layon, River, 285 

Lecouvreur, Adrienne, 221 

Lemaitre, Jules (quoted), v, 205, 

206 
Lepreuse, Messe de la, 66, 67 
Lesczinski, Stanislaus, 220 
Lien, the river, 205 
Lignon, Pontde. See under " Pont " 



Lignon forezien, River, 82 

Lignon du Sud, River, 71 

Liguieres, 258 

Lire, 290 

Loches, 239, 240 

Loing, River, 88, 143 

Loir-et-Cher, Department of, xii, 

229 
Loire, Armee de la, xix, 134, 168, 

197 
Loire, Department of, xi, 75, 78 
Loire, Ferme de la, xi, 21, 26 
Loire, Navigation on the, xiii, xiv, 

XV, xvi, xvii, 45, 46, 68, 70, 

74, 75, 89, 90, 104, 115, 120, 138, 

143, 148, 157, 158, 283, 285, 287, 

310, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 321, 

322 
Loire, its Crues, xxi, 41, 44, 84, 

108, 110, 148, 155, 173 
Loire-Inferieure, Department of, xii 
Loiret, The, confluent of the Loire, 

182, 183, 282 
Loiret, Department of, xii 
Longhi, Pietro, 181 
Lorris, Guillaume de, 192 
Louet, the river, 282, 283, 285 
Louis VII, 240 
Louis IX, 236 
Louis XI, 49, 191, 192, 194, 243, 

244, 265 
Louis XII, 211, 212, 226 
Louis XIII, 213, 249, 251, 252 
Louis XIV, 84, 94, 164, 220, 243, 

260, 271, 284, 303 
Louis XV, 110, 163, 170, 220, 221, 

232 
Louis XVI, 239, 268, 298, 311 
Louis XVIII, 83 
Lozere, Department of, xii 
Luynes, 242, 247, 249, 250, 251 
Lyonnais, The, 79 
Lyons, xiii, 1, 25, 55, 79, 89, 92, 

252 

M 

Macdonald, Marshal (Due deTarente), 

140 
Ma9on, Pierre de, 273 
Madeleine, Chapelle de la, near 

Retournac, 70 
Maine, the river, 277, 282, 283 
Maine-et-Loire, Department of, xii, 

256 
Maintenon, Mine, de, 27 
Maleysson, Mme. Veuve, 61 



INDEX 



829 



Mai pas, Mont, 37 

Mansard, 213, 216, 284 

Marcigny, 93, 94 

Mannoutier, Abbey of, near Tours, 

244 
Marseilles, 25, 163 
Marthe, 65 
Martiniere, La, xii 
Mary Stuart, 173, 230 
Mathieu, 84 

Maurice, Mont St. , 2, 37, 43 
Mauve, the river, 189 
Mauves, 293 
Mazon, the river, 125 
Medicis, Catherine de, 213, 216, 226, 

230 
Medicis, Marie de, 213, 281 
Mediterranean, The, xiii 
Menars, Chateau de, 208 
Menetreol, 128 
Menitre, La, 274, 275 
Mer, 206 
Merchants of the Loire, Community 

of, xiii, xiv 
Mercure de France, 204, 206 
Mercuret, Castle of, 70 
Merimee, Prosper, 50 
Merry-go-Round, The, at Orleans, 

179, 180, 181, 182 
Mesnill, 307 
Mgsvgs 12S 

Meung,' 188, 189, 190, 191, 192 
Mezeanne, the river, 29 
Mezenc, Mont, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 

25, 71 
Mezenc, Seigneui's of the, 19 
Miaune, Mont, 68, 69, 70 
Michelet (quoted), 304 
Migron, Le, 316, 318 
Missionary, The Protestant, 63 
"Modestine," 7, 34 
Moines, Maison des, near Vorey, 67 
Moliere, 223 
Monastier, Le, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 

11, 13, 27, 28, 64 
Monistrol-sur-Loire, 71, 72, 73 
" Monocle," The, 203, 204, 208, 210 
Montalivet, M. de, 128 
Montcerneau, 305 
Montegut, E. (quoted), xx 
Monteil, 59 

Montespan, Mme. de, 243, 271 
Montjean, 286, 287 
Montlouis, 232, 233, 247 
Montlufons, boats peculiar to Berry, 

138 
Moutrichard, 240 



Montrond, Castle of, 79 
Montsoreau, 261, 263, 265, 266, 272, 

273 
Morning Post, The, 204 
Morvan, The, xi, 106, 128, 137 
Mosnes, 229 
Mosnier, Jean, 217 
Moulette, La, Rocks of, 8 
Moulins, XV, 103, 112, 114 
Murs, 282 
Mycnnes, 137 

N 

Nantes, xii, xiii, xv, xxii, 163, 
169, 176, 282, 283, 284, 288, 292, 
293, 294-317, 318, 319, 321 

Nantes, revocation of the edict of, 
235, 269 

Napoleon I, 228, 232 

Nautes Ligerici, xiii 

Nepveu, Pierre le, dit Trinqueau, 
219 

Neuvy-sur-Loire, 137, 139 

Nevers, xi, xiii, xiv, 103, 107, 
108, 109-19, 121 

Nievre, the river, 108, 113 

Nievre, Department of, xi, 122 

Nimes, 25 

Nini, 228 

Nivernais, The, xxi, 106, 107, 121, 
122, 125, 128, 129, 131, 139 

Nohain, 134 

Noirie, La, xi, 79 

Nord, Hotel du, at Monistrol-sur- 
Loire, 73 

Nouan-sur-Loire, 137, 139 



Olivet, 182, 183 

Onzain, the river, 225, 228 

Or, rile d', 267, 268 

Orleans, xii, xiii, xiv, xv, xviii, 

xix, XX, xxii, 129, 145, 158, 

164, 166, 167-87, 188, 192, 282, 

303 
Orleanais, xxi, 128, 134, 156, 172, 

225 
Orme-au-Loup, The, 128, 129 
Oudon, 291, 292, 293 
Ourzie, the river, 37 



Paimboeuf, 316, 319 
Paray-le-Monial, 92, 94, 95, 105 
Paris, xxii 



330 



INDEX 



Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean 

Railway, 71, 145 
Paris-Orleans Railway, 145, 267, 273 
Patay, 303 
Patay, Gilles de, 170 
Patouillot, Chanson de, 112 
Pellerin, Le, 316, 318 
Pennell, Mr. and Mrs., 46, 52 
Perron, Saut dn, 86 
Pertuiset, Le, 75 
Peyredeyre, Fortes de, and villaf^e 

of, 59 
Phelypeaux de la Vrilliere, family 

and chateau of, 163, 164, 172 
Philip Augustus of France, 251, 262 
Philippe le Bel, xiii, 160 
Pilat, Mont, 21 
Pilly, 229 
Pinay, Saut de, 84 
Pin-en-Mauges, Le, 288 
Plessis-les-Tours, 244 
Pliny (quoted), xix 
Pointe, La, 283 

Poitiers, Diane de, 174, 226, 239 
Polignac, Castle of, 57, 58 
Pompadour, Mme. de, 208 
Ponsonaille, Hotel, at Le Monastier, 4 
Pont-de-Lignon, 71, 72 
Ponts-de-Ce, Les, xviii, 272, 276, 

279, 280, 281, 282 
Pornic, 321 

Port-Boulet, 257, 261, 263 
Possoniere, La, 283 
Pougues-les-Eaux, 121 
Pouilly, 125, 126, 128 
Pouilly-sur-Charlieu, 93 
Pouilly, Wine of, 156 
Pouliguen, Le, 321 
Pradelles, 30, 31 
Prelati, Fran9ois, 306 
Provengal, xxii, 28, 31 
Provence, 1 

Puisaye, La, 129, 137, 139 
Puy, Le, en-Velay, 1, 7, 10, 11, 16, 

23, 37, 38, 40, 43, 46, 47-56, 57, 

73 

R 

Rabelais, 226, 242, 260, 263, 264 
Radolilfe, Mrs. Ann, 19 
Raffaelli, 297 

Raimond, M., a bagman, 151-2, 3 
Raimond, M., his birthplace, 152 
Regis, Saint Francis, 51 
Renaudie, La, conspiracy of, 230, 
309 



Rene, King, of Anjou, xiv, 90, 267, 

268, 270, 275, 278, 280 
Retournac, 68, 70, 71 
Retz, Cardinal de, 303 
Retz, Gilles de, 284, 303-8 
Reynard, M., 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 
Rhine, The, xiv 
Rhone, The, xiii, 79 
Ricamarie, La, 77 
Richard I of England, 266 
Richelieu, Cardinal de, 8, 73, 160, 

161, 252 
Rieutord, 25 
Rigny, 260 

Rivet, The Hotel, 35, 36, 38 
Roanne, xi, xiii, xiv, xx, xxii, 84, 

86-92, 108, 143 
Robida, M. (quoted), 172 
Rochebaron, Castle of, 73, 74 
Rocliecorbon, 242, 244, 245 
Rochecotte, Chateau of, 257 
Roche-de-Murs, La, 282 
Roche-en-Regnier, 67 
Romorantin, 217 
Ronsard, 226, 244 
Rosemont, Chateau of, near Sougy, 

108 
Rosiers, Les, 273 
Rouen, 163, 318 

Ru, The, stream at Beaugency, 197 
Rupuanne, 256 
Ruskin, 193 



S 

Sabots, at Le Monastier, 10 

St. Aignan, Ruined Chateau of, 240 

St. Avertin, near Tours, 244 

St. Ay, 189 

St. Benoit, 158-62, 172 

St. Bouize, 28 

St. Brisson, 144 

St. Denis-de-l'Hotel, 164 

St. Etienne, 55, 75, 76, 77 

St. Etienne-le-Molard, 82 

Ste Eirlalie, 24, 25, 60 

St. Florent-le-Vieil, 288 

St. Gemmes, 282 

St. Georges-de-Baroille, 83 

St. Georges-sur-Loire, 283, 284, 285 

St. Germain-sur-Vienne, 264 

St. Hilaire— St. Florent, 273 

St, Jean de la Croix, 282 

St. Just-sur-Loire, 77, 78 

St. Laurent-des-Eaux. 206 

St. Martin-de-Fugeres, 40, 42 



INDEX 



331 



St, Mathurin, 272, 273, 275, 276, 279 

St. Maur, 274, 275 

St. Maurice, near Roanne, 86 

St. Nazaire, xii, xiii, 23, 285, 309, 
315, 316, 320, 321-24 

St. Patrice, 256, 257 

St. Paul-en-Cornillon, 75 

Saint-Pere, 157, 158 

St. Pierre-des-Corps, 233 

St. Pierre- Duchamp, 67 

St. Rambert, 78, 79 

St. Remy-la-Varenne, 272, 275, 276 

Saint-Satur, 126 

St. Victor, xi, 78, 79 

Salettes, 27, 28, 29, 32, 37 

Sancerre, xx, xxii, 126, 127-32, 140, 
156 

Sand, Georges, 53, 54, 222 

Sanine, 188, 189, 204 

Saone-et-Loire, Department of, xi 

Saumur, xiv, 261, 266, 267-73 

Savonnieres, 250, 251 

Savonnieres, near Angers, 283 

Saxe, Maurice de, 220, 221, 222 

Saxony, Augustus II, Elector of, 220 

Schaall, 297 

Scott, Sir Walter, 192 

Seguier, the family of, 144 

Seine, River, 88, 143 

Serrant, Chateau of, 283, 284 

Seuilly, 263 

Sevigne, Mme. de, xiv, 135 

Sichel, Miss Edith (quoted), 216 

Siegfried, M. Jacques, 254 

Simpson, Sir William, 140 

Solignac, 35, 37 

Sologne, xii, 156, 157, 173, 217, 218, 
228 

Songs, quoted in the text (first lines) 
"Chantons la Loire et saMarine," 

xvii 
"Dames des villes et des bourgs," 

xvii 
"Long cils, iines tresses," 81 
"Tes rubans barivolants," 112 
"Oh, j'ai pique mon roug'," 131 
"Voili\ ma journ^e faite," 165, 

166 
"A la douce priere," 174 
"Orleans, Boisgency," 194 
" Quand Renaud de la guerre 

Vint," 224, 225 
"Dodo, petite," 246 
"A la St. Jean je m'accueillis," 

248, 249 
"Dans les prisons de Nantes," 
301, 302 



Songs {co7iid.) — 

"C'etait Anne de Bretagne," 

302, 303 
" A Nant's, a Nant's est arrive," 

315, 316 
" Voyez-moi cheminaut sur mon 

ane," 321, 322 
"Ma douce Anette, par ce beau 
soir." 324 
Sorel, Agnes, 140, 173, 239 
Sougy, 108 

Source, Chateau de la, 182, 183 
Spain, xiv 
Stael, Mme, de, 228 
Stendhal (Henri Beyle), xxi 
Stevens, Alfred, 296 
Stevenson, R. L., 7, 8, 10, 11, 37, 

39, 40, 140, 141, 142 
Strabo, xiii 
Sully, The Town and Chateau of, 

149, 157 
Sully, Henri IV's minister, 157 
Sumene, the river, 59, 75 
Swinburne (quoted), 308 
Syndicat d'Initiative du Velay, 15, 
16, 17, 46 



T 

Talleyrand, 257 

Tann, Von der, xix, 168 

Tarascon, 90 

Taulhac, 43 

Tavers, 204, 205, 206 

Thauvenay, 128 

Theodolphus, Bishop of Orleans, 162 

Theofred, Saint, 8 

Thou, de, 252 

Thouet, the river, 269, 272, 273, 279 

Toulouse, Parliament of, 51 

Tour, Count Imbart de la (quoted), 

xvi, XX 
Touraine, xii, xxii, 134, 172, 225, 

226, 229, 242, 251, 261, 303 
Tour-des-Sauvages, The, at Aurec, 

74 
Touring-Club de France, 16 
Tours, xii, xiii, xviii, xx, 177, 225, 

232, 234-46, 247, 300 
Tracy, 126, 128 
Tracy-Sancerre, 116, 126, 133 
"Travels with a Donkey" (quoted), 

11 
Tr61az6, 273 

Tremoille, Due de la, 284 
Treves, 273 
Tronsanges, Vineyards of, 122 



^/. 



r 



INDEX 



Turmeliere, Chateau de la, 290 
Turner, J. M. W., 271, 293, 319 
Turquaut, 266 

U 

Umbert, 159 

Usse, Chateau of, 260, 262 



Valentinay, M. de, 260 

Valliere, Mile, la, 243 

Valois, Marguerite de, 212 

Varades, 288 

Varenne, Chateau de la, 293 

Varennes, Les, 256, 257, 258, 259. 

260, 262, 273 
Vauban, 260 

Velay, The, 1, 21, 32, 51, 73, 137 
Vendee, La, xviii, 270, 281, 282. 

288, 308 
Vernay, 86 
Verrieres, Mile., 222 
Vertaure, 66, 67 
Verpeine (a liqueur), 56, 64 
Veyradeyre, the torrent, 18, 29 
Viaye, Valley of, 67 
Vibraye, the Marquis Henri Hurault 

de, 217 
Vichy, 121, 125, 130 
Vielprat, 27 



Vienne, the river, xii, 239, 247, 262 
263, 265 . . , 

" Vieux Cheniins/' 29, 32, 42 
Vigny, Alfred de, 252 
Villandry, 250, 251 
Villerest, 86 
Villon, Francois (quoted), 132, 191. 

Vinci, Leonardo da, 212, 230 
Voltaire, 110, 225 
Vorey, xi, 56, 60, 61-8, 79, 227 
Vouvray, 225, 227, 232, 242 
Voyageurs, Hotel des, at Vorey, 65 
VriUe, River, 37 

W 
Wagram, Battle of, 140 
Wallace Collection, The, 297 
Walsh, James, 284 
Watteau, 297 

Wilson, Mr. (quoted), 304, 305, 306, 
oU7 



\oung, Arthur, xiv, 31, 54, 55, 58, 

90, 108-9, 172, 176, 312, 318 
Yssingeaux, 60 



Zouave, Encounter with, 3, 4 



WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTIi. 
PRINTERS. PLYMOUTH 



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